


Elastic Heart

by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, At Least Someone Has Fun, Crazy Toni Stark, Crossover, Dark Humor, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Life Sucks And Then You Die, Mentions of Forced Prostitution, Multi, Nat & Clint Shenanigans, No Carbon Copies, Schmidt For World's Worst President
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:49:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8269819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc
Summary: '“I volunteer!” Natasha shouts, voice cracking, and Clint winces at the raw emotion in her tone. “I volunteer as tribute.” The silence is deafening.'* The characters from the Avengers, born into a dystopian world. One by one, they're dragged into the Games - and not all of them come out on top. The Hunger Games Trilogy, but very different.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one a while ago and never quite finished it. This fic is part 1 and will extend from character beginnings (chapter one) to the end of Catching Fire / beginning of Mockingjay. Of course, given that this is the Hunger Games, it can get pretty dark - particularly the first chapter. The next one and the one after will have much more humor, as you'll soon see!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! (Note: Changed summary to better fit the story)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Well I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart,  
> But your blade - it might be too sharp.  
> I’m like a rubberband, until you pull too hard.  
> Yeah, I may snap and I move fast,  
> But you won’t see me fall apart,  
> Cause I’ve got an elastic heart.” - Elastic Heart, Sia

 

* * *

 

Nick Fury was born in District Five to a system analyst mother and a security officer father. They did not want for food, and Nick’s name was put in the bare minimum of times. Seven, by the time he was reaped at the age of eighteen.

Eighteen, and from District Five. He wasn’t from a Career district, and that practically guaranteed death in the Games - and while the chances of him being drawn were low (there were, after all, over a hundred thousand people in District Five), he was damned sure not going to be the next statistic.

It was illegal to train for the Games without having been chosen already, and he didn’t really think he’d _ever_ be chosen. But he did it anyways. He trained, and he worked, and he made it to the age of eighteen without any issues. And then his name was drawn.

All in all, no one anticipated the level of steady precision he took in killing his way to the top. No one looked twice, and that made it very easy to bury a knife in the back of their necks whenever they tried to fuck with him.

He wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He would never be proud of it. But he didn’t regret doing what he had to do, even if it cost him his right eye in the end. The only thing he regrets, so deeply that sometimes it felt like it would smother him, is the fact that it was ever necessary to begin with.

But he’d survived the 48th Hunger Games and that knowledge kept him going.

 _I survived_ , he tells himself, even when the knowledge makes him so angry it feels like he’s choking. Anger is better than grief.

 

* * *

 

Phil Coulson was born in District Twelve. It was, to be frank, the second worst district to be born in - narrowly beaten out by District Eleven.

He was an unassuming man, in shape but not muscular, and a very bland personality. His family was equally unassuming. A miner and a poor tailor, respectively. He was well on his way to following after his father, sixteen with less than two years left before he’d be sent off to the mines to farm coal for the rest of his life.

And then the 50th Hunger Games began, and Phil found himself drawn into a game with twice as many enemies and three times as many friends. He’d liked his district mates - he really had.

But he didn’t hesitate to bury a mining pick in the skulls of anyone who he needed to.

At the end of the day, Phil Coulson survived, and became the second District 12 victor in history. It was hell, he’d never try to say otherwise, but he survived. Even if some days it doesn’t feel quite like it. He regrets it, those days - not just what he had to do, but that he has to spend the rest of his life with that knowledge. He regrets even more the next year when he’s forced to sit there and watch the kids he’d tried to mentor die (thirteen and fifteen, they never had a chance in hell) for the _amusement_ of the monsters in the Capitol.

“I thought killing eight kids was hell.” Nick Fury tells him by way of hello, plopping down into the seat next to him as they - all the mentors trapped in this damned place, watching stupid, too young kids die, and all the Career victors who come here to _party_ like it’s something _fun_ \- watch the ‘Games’ in a large room. “Can’t imagine killing fifteen.”

“I did what I had to.” Phil Coulson says flatly, wondering what the man was about and why he was bringing up such a painful topic.

“Didn’t we all?” Nick asks, then shoots a dark look at the group of Career victors crowing as a thirteen year old from 5 gets picked up and _thrown_ into a nest of tracker jackers.

It’s a terrible, terrible way to die, and they’re both silent as it takes _minutes_ for her to stop gasping for breath. “Poor kid.” Nick murmurs softly and Phil pauses, blinking.

“Yeah.” He says slowly, glancing sideways at the man who couldn’t be much older than himself. Nick looks at him curiously now, something in his tone giving him away. He vows to fix that immediately.

“If only we could do something.” Nick says, far too softly for anyone - or any _thing_ \- else to pick up.

Phil blinks very slowly and then gives a soft, noncommittal hum. “I’d sure like to see that some day.” Phil says, looking up at the screen and leaning back to watch his surviving tribute, the fifteen year old girl. Marlene. Poor thing.

Nick lightly taps his fingers on his knee and _plots_.

 

* * *

 

Bruce Banner is sixteen when he’s called into the 53rd Hunger Games. He’s terrified, and he’s angry, because he’s learning to be a _scientist_. Someone who can _help_ people, and now he’s being sent in as District 3’s male.

He doesn’t know the girl reaped alongside him. He doesn’t know her, and he’s shamefully overjoyed that it’s not Betty, the seventeen year old girl who’s working with him in the labs. Of course, she’s probably safe anyways - her father, Thaddeus Ross, is a past victor. Surely that gives him some leeway on her safety?

He doesn’t know.

All he knows is he desperately, desperately doesn’t want to do this.

But he does. He runs from the Cornucopia, listening to the bloodshed erupt behind him, and hates that he can’t go back and _help_ someone. There’s no helping someone in the Hunger Games - they _have_ to die, and the knowledge kills him inside. So he runs. He runs, and he pretends he doesn’t feel guilty when he sees his fellow tribute flash across the sky that night, one of the first to fall at the bloodbath.

He keeps running, finding it the easiest way to deal with the situation. He doesn’t want to kill _anyone_ , but he knows he’ll have to. The gamekeepers don’t let anyone run and hide for long.

The woods he hides in catch fire in the middle of the fourth night. He has to kill someone on his way out, and the fire kills another. And then it’s just him and a Career from District 2 named Emil. It takes four hours for Emil to find him, and Bruce does the only thing he can do.

He struggles, and eventually crushes Emil’s skull with a giant rock.

He never forgets the way Emil shrieked, the way his skull just _caved_ , and the way his splattered brains felt kind of like chunky meat sauce between his fingers.

He _never_ forgets, and he _never_ stops hating himself.

 

* * *

 

Toni Stark was the daughter of Howard Stark, famed victor of the 37th Hunger Games. He was famous for blowing up the five last standing tributes in one big explosion - famous and _proud_. Toni hated him for that, and hated him even more for pushing her to do the same. It wasn’t an _honor_ to brutally murdered a ton of kids. It wasn’t something to take _pride_ in. Plus, they lived in District 3, where Careers just didn’t _happen_. So Toni told him to go fuck himself.

It figured, then, that she’d be called in for the 54th Hunger Games at the age of thirteen.

“You should’ve listened to me.” Howard tells her furiously while cradling her sobbing mother, like it’s _her fault_ she’s the _sane one_.

“You should’ve listened to a fucking therapist.” Toni spits and makes her escape before he can say anything else. It’s Bruce Banner, the victor from just one year before, who escorts her to the train with a pale, pained face. The other guy, Justin Hammer, is seventeen and decently known for his destructive inventions (though self-destructive is, in her opinion, a much more accurate term), whereas she’s known for nothing.

Because she’s _thirteen_ , and this shit’s _insane_.

Some of her disgust must show on her face, because their escort, some chipper, weird looking woman named Tiara ( _Tiara_ , for fucks sake. She’s _thirteen_ and thinks that’s a stupid name) pulls her aside and tells her to act cute.

“You’re _all_ fucking nutjobs.” Toni proclaims at that, so loudly that Bruce snorts his tea from across the room and Justin looks _appalled_ , like he was raised better, which is unlikely. She was raised by a victor. He was poor.

Poor and _annoying_ , even if he did have a _half_ decent brain rattling around in there.

She does, eventually, listen though.

It takes them getting to the Capitol and being introduced to a veritable _shitshow_ of crazy fuckers for Toni to realize that if she wants to survive, she’s going to have to at least pretend to be on the same level. So she hunts down Tiara (seriously, _Tiara?_ Ridiculous name) and puts on her cutest ‘ _Mom I want cookies SO bad_ ’ face and asks for help. She’s damn cute, too, because the woman doesn’t even notice that she doesn’t try to apologize. Tiara (Jesus, _Tiara,_ c’mon) immediately coos that it’s okay and then spends the next three days condescending Toni into a Stupid Overload Migraine.

But it works.

She goes on stage, she adores the ever living shit out of Caesar Flickerman, and then she goes into the arena and fucks up everyone.

 _I’m going to live,_ Toni tells herself firmly, and when the horn cries, she leaps off the Cornucopia and swims out of there. Then she grabs a nice, pointy rock, waits about five minutes, and jumps onto the back of the first person stupid enough to run past her. She clings like a spider monkey and bashes the pointy rock as hard as she can into their temple, over and over and over again.

Eventually, they drop, and Toni takes his backpack and bolts.

She spends one day recuperating and plotting. The backpack had mostly junk in it, but she can work magic with junk. Her father was an asshole and too stubborn to realize that she wasn’t just as good as him, but _better_. The first night, she creeps up on the Cornucopia. The Careers have already claimed it and set up a semi fortified base there, hastily thrown together and poorly watched. Two people on watch, and that’s _it_.

 _Idiots_ , Toni thinks, and then blows them sky fucking high.

Then she takes what little is left of their food and weapons. There’s not much, and their pile was probably everything in the area _not_ in the hands of another tribute, but Toni knew that. She _planned_ , and she wouldn’t need those supplies anyways.

Thirteen years old meant no one had thought twice about her.

She was going to make every single one of them regret that.

So she sits upon her throne of destruction, eats a quick snack, waves with a sweet smile at the camera that she _knows_ is there and that the fucked up people in the Capitol will love, and then takes off with her newly acquired supplies in search of her next victim.

It isn’t that she hates these people, or wants them dead, or even wants to kill them. It’s just that she knows she’s thirteen. Thirteen, and the second youngest this year was a fifteen year old Career boy from District 4. It doesn’t bode well for her in the slightest.

She doesn’t want to kill anyone - but even more than that, she doesn’t want to _be killed_.

So she does what she has to, and she does it without hesitation, and she _fucking survives_.

 

* * *

 

James Rhodes is born in District 11, because that’s where most people ‘like him’ are born. He’s nothing special, really. He’s even the opposite. He’s shorter than most his age, and while he’s got good muscle going on, he’s pretty slim. Which means it’s a damn good thing (comparatively, that is) that he’s chosen for the 58th Hunger Games at the age of 18. He’s the oldest out of them all, and even though it’s a nightmare come true, he goes into it with a decent chance of coming back out.

He’ll never quite decide if that’s a good thing or not.

Tending to plants all his life doesn’t make him much of a fighter, of course. He’s got age and strength on his side though, more years of hard work under his belt than anyone except the Careers, so he doesn’t flee the Cornucopia. He charges it.

He gets two backpacks and a long hoe for his efforts, the last of which he buries into two skulls on his way out. He doesn’t feel guilty - both of them were Careers, and he’s pretty sure they were both over sixteen, so they’re fair game as far as he’s concerned.

It’s pretty damn weird going from killing beetles to killing human beings, though, and he has to take a few minutes to wash the blood off his hoe before he can shake himself back into moving.

He doesn’t run, but he does hide. What he lacks in size he makes up for in scrappiness, so he waits in little hidey-holes, in trees and small caves and under particularly bushy bushes, and springs out on anyone his own size (or bigger) who comes by.

He leaves alone the little guys. He’s not delusional, he knows they’ll either die to someone else or he’ll have to fight them later, but goddamn he doesn’t want to. One of them’s only twelve, which he both hopes for and prays _doesn’t_ end up like Toni Stark from three years ago.

It’s a shitty damned-if-you-do situation. Either the kid would be epic and survive hell with spectacularly terrifying and deadly skill and James would be a smoking corpse on the ground, or James gets to live and a twelve year old boy dies instead.

It’s fucked up, but James knows the obvious answer. He won’t kill the little guys if he can help it, but he isn’t about to lay down either.

Luck is on his side, if you can claim that while literally _in the Hunger Games_ , and he doesn’t have to kill the small fry. It makes him feel like dirt to see their names and pictures show up overhead, and even worse when he feels a little bit _relieved_ by it. But he also _super_ doesn’t want to die.

So when it comes down to him and one final Career, a seventeen year old girl from District 4 with a seriously gnarly spear thing, he goes for her throat without much hesitation. She’s covered in more blood than he’s spilled, so he doesn’t feel too guilty about actually _managing_ to rip out her throat with the flat side of his hoe. It might help ease his guilt that her stupid harpoon thing buries itself in his shoulder on her way down.

He wakes up in medical with everything in place and healing surprisingly quickly.

Even more surprising is the guest sitting next to him. “Good job out there.” Toni Stark greets him with a sharp, fleeting smile that’s somehow both vicious and warm at the same time.

“Uh.” James smartly begins.

“Well. _Good_ is probably the wrong word. Implies something less than decent about our life choices, y’know?” Toni says so rapidly that it takes James a second to process it. She flaps a hand dismissively, the tight sleeves of her vibrant green dress showing off the shapes of her biceps as she does, and he blinks even harder. She’s seventeen, but she’s dressed… not indecently, but beautiful and classy with just enough _wow_ to make it almost _seem_ indecent. Maybe the rumors of her growing promiscuity aren’t as ridiculous as they sounded.

He blinks again and refocuses on her horrifyingly amused face. “I was looking at your biceps, I swear.” James blurts out immediately.

Toni grins, and it even more warm than before, her blue eyes sparkling with laughter. “Well, so long as it was the muscles.” She teases. “Anyways, seriously, though. I liked your attitude. Very calm, zero bloodthirst, only a minimal amount of crippling guilt? You’re solid gold.” Toni applauds, and then casually leans forward, her eyes going hard and her warm smile suddenly being unnervingly cold. “Have an accident. Cut your face up a bit, understand?” Toni hisses, low and dangerous, and James stares at her in wide-eyed shock because _Jesus Christ_ talk about _mood swings_.

“What?” He manages to ask, incredulous and maybe a _tiny bit_ terrified, and Toni’s smile falters slightly, less hard and more fearful herself.

“Take it from me. It’s a bad idea to be competent _and_ pretty here.” Toni whispers so softly he can barely understand the words.

“I don’t understand.” James admits slowly and Toni grimaces, reaching up to scratch at her nose before the fake smile that looks eerily natural reappears on her face.

“Trip and fall on some glass before you have to find out the hard way what I mean.” Toni says and then lurches to her feet, flashing him a megawatt smile and snatching his hand up to shake it. “It was nice meeting you. Looking forward to seeing you next year, Rhodey!” Toni says brightly before she whips on her heels and vanishes out the doors.

James watches her go, feeling rather like he’d just been sucked up and spat out by a tornado.

...And somehow he got the feeling it would be a serious mistake to stay ‘pretty’, as she said.

 

* * *

 

 

Pepper Potts was not made for the Hunger Games. She was a fifteen year old girl from District 4 and her childhood had been spent in moderate wealth. Her father was Mayor, and her mother was a successful ship captain who brought in even more money.

She should’ve been protected.

She wasn’t.

She doesn’t pretend to not be terrified when she’s reaped for the 59th Hunger Games. She can’t. She’s _terrified_ , through and through, and knows she has little to no chance of survival. Not only does she have no real fighting skill, but the mere _thought_ of killing someone makes her hands shake and her stomach churn.

“You aren’t going to last,” Her ‘mentor’ informs her bluntly, and then focuses his attention on the boy reaped with her.

She isn’t offended. She’s too busy being terrified, because he’s _right_.

So when she watches her district-mate get his head chopped in half, part of her breaks away and giggles hysterically at the thought that, in the end, _he_ was the one that died. Not her.

She doesn’t survive on skill. Well, technically she does, but not really. She runs and she hides and she avoids, and she lives by complete accident. The dam breaks, and for a hysterical moment, she wonders to herself why she was chosen to survive, because of _course_ the survivor of District 4 would be the best swimmer, would be the one to survive.

But she later, when she’s more sane, determines that the dam blowing had to have been unplanned. An actual, legitimate _accident_ , because if it had worked out, she would’ve been the first victor in history to have not killed a single person.

As it is, a sixteen year old from District 12 grabs onto her ankle and tries to drown her first, so that she’d be rescued. Pepper kicks her as hard as she can in the nose and the girl gurgles, automatically gasping in a mouthful of water, and Pepper kicks her again purely on instinct.

She goes further under, panics harder, and can’t figure out which way’s up.

Pepper can only watch in stunned horror as the girl dies in a cloud of her own blood, eyes wide and terrified.

She doesn’t stop screaming until the rescue team knocks her out.

She goes home alone, terrified, and broken.

 

* * *

 

Maria Hill is fifteen and she is _competent_. She was raised by two security officers in District 5 and knew how to fight, and Nick Fury, her trainer, zeroed in on her the second she was reaped for the 62nd Hunger Games.

“You’re going to survive this.” Nick informs her so severely she has no choice but to believe him. “Show me how.” Nick instructs, and she attacks.

She doesn’t hesitate.

Under Nick’s careful instruction, she works harder than ever before, until she can _almost_ go toe to toe with him in martial arts. With him going easy on her, of course. “You’re going to survive,” Nick repeats the day of the Games. “Make sure you get hurt,” He adds somewhat later, glancing pointedly at her face. She isn’t sure why, exactly, but she knows from his expression it can’t be good - so she nods her head.

When he sees her off for the last time, he sets a hand on her shoulder and says, with the utmost confidence, “I’ll see you soon.”

And he does.

She storms the Cornucopia, allying herself with the Careers, and takes their mockery of her being from a non-Career District in stride, and helps them as long as it’s good for her to. These Games are easy, she thinks, in the sense that she, at fifteen, is tied for youngest with two others. Fifteen, which means she can kill without too much regret.

There _is_ some, but she doesn’t feel like she’s murdering children, at least, and Maria can live with that.

So when the time comes, she’s on watch at their little camp and silently slits the throat of the other tribute. Then she goes for those that’re sleeping, and kills them all without too much trouble. She gets a deep cut down her face for her efforts, going from her temple all the way down to her collarbone, skipping a bit of flesh under her chin.

Cosmetic, she tells herself firmly, and she’s never been vain anyways. At least Nick will be pleased, though she still has no idea _why_.

So she continues on, and she doesn’t hesitate, even if it makes her uneasy to kill so wantonly. It’s what she has to do, so she does it, all the way till the end.

“Good work.” Nick tells her with a grim smile, eyeing the angry gash down her face approvingly.

She doesn’t understand, but that’s okay, because she’ll never have to.

 

* * *

 

Jamie Barnes is chosen for the 66th Hunger Games. She’s sixteen and it’s not the first or the last time she sees her best friend, Steve Rogers, cry terrified tears. District 4 is a Career district and both of them had at least basic combat training, but Steve still cries, because he’s seen the horrors of the Games and now his best friend is going in.

“I’ll be fine.” Jamie says confidently, tucking her brown hair behind her ear. “I’ll be fine, and you’ll feel like a complete moron for crying about nothing.”

“Yeah. Nothing.” Steve snorts wetly, rubbing at his eyes. “Just a little horrible death with a side of only one survivor.”

“Only needs to be one.” Jamie points out with a grin she doesn’t quite feel. She’s strong for her age, and tall too. She’s harpoon fished a lot since she was a child - it’s something she and Steve do regularly to kill time.

She’s got more experience than most kids going in, and that’ll go a long way.

She hopes.

“Pepper-” Steve starts to say and Jamie shoots him a sharp look that gains her an apologetic one in return.

“We both know I’m nothing like Pepper.” Jamie says harshly.

It’s not that she doesn’t like Pepper. It’s that they really _are_ very different. Pepper was raised with a silver spoon. Jamie was raised a potential fighter. It _makes a difference_ , and she reminds Steve of that.

“I know, I know, I just… you’ve seen what they can do in there.” Steve says quietly, and both of them take a moment to remember the way Pepper’s district mate had had his head sliced clean in two.

And then there was tiny Toni Stark, who had blown everyone’s expectation to fiery shit at all of thirteen years and sixty pounds. And then she turned into a weird, giant Capitol whore, of all things. Guess she’d just enjoyed the Games a little too much.

“Yeah. Well. Hopefully I won’t have any crazy surprises like those.” Jamie says slowly, and really, really hopes, because that Toni surprise had been weird enough to watch. She doesn’t want to live that messed up crap. “Anyways, relax. I’ll come back.” Jamie promises confidently.

She can’t pretend it doesn’t affect her when Steve looks over and quietly says, “but will you still be you?”

The answer is no.

No one goes in and comes back out themselves. She realizes that the moment she’s in. She charges the Cornucopia, snags herself a weird trident thing that’s not a harpoon but it’s close enough, she guesses, and then slaughters her way to three bags and away from the Cornucopia.

She regrets their deaths. It hurts her deeper than anything’s ever hurt her before, and she realizes that no. No, she won’t still be her, because she’s already, in the first three minutes of the _fucking_ Games, lost that.

She doesn’t let it stop her.

There’ll be time for therapy, for prayer, for pleas for forgiveness later in her life, she just needs to _get to that point_. So she fights. The bags leave her pretty much covered in terms of food and water, but jack shit for medical supplies.

Turns out she really should’ve hunted some of that down.

On the fourteenth day, some asshole shoots her in the arm with an arrow.

On the bright side, it was her non-dominant left arm, so while she _vastly_ preferred using her harpoon (ridiculous-trident-thing) with two hands, she could still _use_ it. Not great, but enough to repay the damages by burying it in the asshole’s face.

On the down side, it gets infected, like, _immediately_ and there are still two other tributes left.

She has no choice but to actually actively hunt them down and kill them. She’s already running a fever, and time is literally burning, so she books it.

Thankfully, one of them kills the other before she has to. She finds him leaning over the fourteen year old girl’s body, still getting his knife back out, and impales his neck on her trident. “I win, bitch.” Jamie pants out as he gurgles, eyes wide and more furious than shocked, which eases her conscience a bit.

The helicopter is there almost the same moment he stops breathing, and she’s announced victor and carted away for medical care.

It’s too late, and she’s almost thankful for that. She can pretend that losing her arm is penance, or karma, or some other stupid bullshit that makes her less guilty for killing six people without hesitation. All she knows is, when they offer her one of their nice, fancy prosthetics, she glares at the doctor so hard he goes pale and beats a hasty retreat. Her arm would be her penance, she decides, and like  _hell_ is she going to take a prosthetic from the Capitol when she'd be perfectly fine with one arm.

On the other hand, Toni Fucking Stark is at her bedside when she wakes up the next time, which is completely uncalled for. “Jesus Christ, you’re a menace. How long have you been sitting there _staring_ at me you fucking creeper?” Jamie demands in a gasp and Toni Fucking Stark glances at the _gold fucking watch_ on her wrist and frowns.

“Uh… three hours and forty minutes. Give or take a couple.” Toni says and then shrugs. “Good news. You don’t need to cut your face!”

“What the _fuck_ does that mean? Holy shit you are so weird. Why is this conversation happening?”

“Really bad luck.” Toni shrugs again, then leans in and doubles her creeper stare.

“Stop that.” Jamie commands.

“You’re one of us now,” Toni purrs and Jamie cringes, inching away. “One of us.”

“Stop it!”

“One of us.”

“I will stab you!”

“That reminds me,” Toni cries out and abruptly leans back, reaching behind her back to grab a small jar. “I saved that arrowhead that was in your arm. You want it?” Toni asks, holding the jar out and wiggling it like it’s supposed to be _tantalizing_ or something.

“What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?” Jamie breathes out and Toni shrugs, looking ridiculously pleased as she tucks the jar away again.

“ _Soooo_ much, and lucky for you you little dirty birdie, you’ll never have to find out for yourself.” Toni says with a smirk, leaning back into that stupid ‘fuck me’ pose she whores around in on TV.

...Personally, Jamie doesn’t care, but man Stevie gets irritated anytime they see Toni Fucking Stark on TV. Gets _really_ prissy about her ‘forgetting where she came from’ and becoming just like a ‘typical Capitol woman’ or whatever. Honestly, Jamie tunes him out after a while.

“So, wanna join a super secret boyband?”

“What the _fuck_.” Jamie whispers, almost pleadingly.

 

* * *

 

 

The arm wasn’t karma.

The karma came the year after, when Steve Rogers was called for the 67th Hunger Games.

Steve, who was horrified but unendingly supportive of Jamie’s messed up state of mind. Steve, who adored her but was still shaken by the lack of hesitation she’d killed with.

 _Steve_ , with the moral compass of…

Of…

Fuck, something extremely morally compassy. _Whatever_.

The point was, Jamie was terrified for him.

“I’m going to be your mentor for this.” Jamie informs him firmly after the drawing.

“What about your mentor?” Steve asks curiously and Jamie shrugs.

“He sucked dick. Let’s go.” Jamie proclaims and Steve, terrified, morally struggling Steve, snorts out a soft, surprised laugh as she links her arm through his and carts him towards the train. “Lesson one, hold your damn tongue. You mouth off about the morality of the Hunger Games, the gamekeeper will _slaughter_ you.”

“I know.” Steve sighs heavily and Jamie grimaces, already aching for him.

“Lesson two. You hesitate, you die, so go after the big and growly ones. Focus on taking out the Careers. They’ll take time, time during which, to be frank, they’ll pick off the little guys. It’ll hurt.” Jamie says softly, leading him through the train to their compartments, and Steve goes silent at her side. “It’ll hurt like all hell, but you won’t have to do it yourself. So focus on killing the ones who deserve it, who are the pieces of shit that _live_ for this kind of thing, that actually _want_ it. They’ll enjoy killing the shrimps. Send them off to apologize in the next life for that.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Steve murmurs.

It’s agonizing.

Every step of the way, it hurts like all hell. Steve’s _too good_ for this, and she’s terrified he won’t bring himself to do it.

It’s almost worse that he _does_.

He takes her advice. He charges the Cornucopia, using his bulk strength to ease the way, and makes his first kill there. He retreats and even without the cameras seeing him, she knows he’s throwing up.

“He’ll survive it.” Rhodes says quietly in the viewing room and Jamie can’t help but automatically shoot him a vicious glare.

Never interrupt a woman when she’s brooding.

Rhodes obediently falls silent, but then his loudmouthed shadow chimes in. “I actually agree.” Toni says, but with a strange dark undertone that has Jamie squinting at her. “Not necessarily a good thing, though.”

And isn’t that the truth.

Jamie turns her dark glare back to the screens, gnawing her lip.

She almost doesn’t hear Toni murmur, “He’s very pretty,” in a tone that sends shudders down her spine. Like it’s the saddest, worst thing Toni’s ever seen.

Toni’s a _freakishly_ weird duck, but Jamie knows when to take her seriously - and from the way Phil Coulson glances across the room at them, from the _look_ on his face, this is definitely one of those times. Phil’s grim expression goes tight and he glances back up at the screen, eyes narrowed.

“C’mon, Tones.” Rhodes says softly, wrapping his arm around Toni-

Jamie blinks, startled, and then super subtly moves herself a seat over because things are getting personal. Toni curls into Rhodes’ chest, shivering and eyes glazed, locked on the screens along with the rest of them.

Jamie has half a mind to furiously demand if she’s seriously high off her ass while her kids, a twelve and fifteen year old, are fighting for their lives.

But then it occurs to her - a twelve year old? Jamie would probably be high to her eyeballs, too.

“...This shit’s fucked.” Jamie mutters under her breath, stuffing her arm under her boobs and scrunching down into her seat to sulk extra hard.

It takes thirteen days for Steve to win.

In that time, she sees Toni with no less than five different men and two women, but she hasn’t appeared high again once in that time.

Jamie’s almost tempted to ask her if she has any drugs left to share, because she _seriously_ needs to help a sister out, when Steve finally, finally wins.

But when she goes to the hospital and sees how exhausted, how… how _destroyed_ he is, in spirit if not in body, she almost…

_Almost_

...Wonders if it’s a good thing.

 

* * *

 

It takes him a full year to recover enough to say ‘yes’ to the ‘boyband’ offer.

They gather up for the 69th Hunger Games, all of them. Even Pepper Potts goes with them, and the only one of ‘them’ who doesn’t show is the ever elusive Bruce Banner.

“Would’ve looked weird. Pepper’s already a red flag, but Brucie-bear? Might as well wave a gigantic, lit up banner written in all capital letters, ‘suspicious shit going down here’. Besides, he’s in the hospital right now.” Toni explains rapidly as she shows Jamie and Steve to the room they were meeting up in. “Zero cameras, courtesy of me, you’re welcome by the way. No one to see us coming or going. Super subtle malfunction they won’t notice even after I fix it.”

“Good work, Stark.” Nick Fury, who Jamie hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting but _knew_ from Phil and Toni. The leader of the whole shebang

“Jamie Barnes.” She introduces immediately, offering him her hand. He takes it without hesitation. “Cripples unite, eh?” Jamie winks.

One eyed Fury doesn’t wink back, or does, and she really has no idea but she’s going to assume  _no_. “Strong grip.” Jamie mutters as she frees her hand and retreats to Rhodes, who watches Toni chat up a surprisingly talkative Pepper. “They know each other?” Jamie asks in surprise, keeping her other eye on Steve as he shakes Fury’s hand next.

“Toni was the first one to join up.” Rhodes explains softly, surprising her.

“Not Banner?”

“No. Banner’s… a touchy subject, honestly. Anyways, Toni was the first,” Rhodes repeats as Steve heads over, tiredly sinking into a chair next to Jamie, who silently starts rubbing his right shoulder. “She used to sit with the victors, when they first came out. Pepper was the last one she did that with, until you.”

“Why?” Steve asks with a tiny bit of suspicion, but mostly concern so Jamie lets it slide. Now’s not the time for his weird ‘tude towards Toni. “I mean, why would she sit with you?”

“Recruitment speech, personally.” Jamie offers with a shrug.

“For me, well.” Rhodes hesitates a moment, then shrugs as well. “She told me I did well. That I did the best anyone could expect. I didn’t come out a monster or a broken mess. And then she told me to stab myself in the face.”

“...Uh.” Jamie pauses, reviews that, and then continues with a small nod. “Yeah, I think you missed a bit of a segue there.”

“No, really, that’s actually exactly how it happened.” Rhodes says almost thoughtfully. “She said the same thing to the others. Fury passed it on to Maria - that’s why she’s got that gouge. Pepper, well. Pepper… didn’t need to.” Rhodes says slowly, shifting uncomfortably. Speaking of her, Jamie looks over to see Pepper grinning unabashed at Toni, who smiles beautifully back at her.

Actually, they both look pretty stunning. Pepper’s shoulders aren’t so hunched, and her chin is actually lifted as she speaks to Toni. Toni’s clothes are… more covering than what she usually wears. A form fitting but not skin tight long sleeve shirt and loose grey pants. She looks _cute_ , actually. And she's smiling at Pepper with a genuine warmth that Jamie had never even noticed had been  _missing_ from her smiles.

“I don’t understand.” Steve says slowly, dragging Jamie’s attention back. “Why does she tell people to cut their faces?”

“So they aren’t so pretty.” Rhodes says quietly, a dark undertone creeping in. The same one that Toni had used when Steve was in the Games, and once more, it sends a shudder down her spine.

She isn’t sure why, but whatever their reasons are, they’re seriously unpleasant for them to talk about it like that.

“What’s so wrong with being pretty?” Jamie forces herself to ask, 99% sure she does _not_ want to know.

“Hard to say.” Rhodes says tightly, apparently dismissing the conversation. “Harder still when it’s not your place to. Go ask Phil. _Don’t_ ,” Rhodes bites off, turning his head to fix them both with harsh stares. “ _Don’t_ ,” he repeats softly, almost fearfully, and that more than anything has Jamie listening attentively, “ask Toni.”

For a long moment, they’re both completely silent as they take in the sheer intensity of Rhodes’ statement. “Consider us warned off.” Jamie offers at last and Rhodes nods sharply, shoulders slumping a little.

“Just..., just see that you don’t. And ask Phil, before you say something shitty.”

“Uh.” Jamie says very quickly because Steve’s shoulder tenses under her hand, warning her he’s about to get righteous. “We will do that. Right now in fact. _Now_ , Stevie,” Jamie hisses the last part, tugging ineffectively at him because she only has one, wimpy arm.

One armed push ups are _hell_ , and she might not do them as often as she should be.

...She should work on that.

Steve allows himself to be pulled up, though, and walks with her over to Phil Coulson, who’s chatting away with Maria Hill - another one Jamie had yet to meet, actually. “Hey, I’m Jamie Barnes.” She cuts in the moment they stop talking to get some breath, regardless of rudeness.

Maria turns with a small, slightly distracted smile, and holy _crap_ Rhodes wasn’t joking about that scar. Jamie was expecting it and still can’t quite help the way her eyes jump to the thin but deep gouge running down her face, from temple down to her neck. It dodges everything, just barely brushing past her eye and the edges of her lips, and Jamie’s kind of impressed she managed to avoid taking that kind of damage.

Assuming she’d actually dodged it and it hadn’t just been a poorly done attack.

“Maria Hill.” She returns, shaking Jamie’s hand. Steve’s thrusts his hand out a moment later, always following after her, and Jamie smirks a little at that thought. Little Stevie never did quite outgrow her.

“Steve Rogers.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Well. Not really, but.” Maria shrugs, gesturing vaguely to the room at large, and Jamie nods her agreement. Sure, the people were nice, but the only reason they were there was because they were all victors.

“Fair enough.”

“Hey, Phil.” Jamie adds brightly, and is immediately distracted by Rhodes calling out to Toni.

“Hey, you’re going to be late, Tones!” Rhodes says and Toni pauses mid-sentence with Pepper, flashing her a sultry grin and a wink before she turns on her heel. Steve makes a soft, disapproving noise at that, and then another when Jamie buries her elbow in his side. Toni glances over at them, looking every bit as smug as a cat that had eaten the canary, with an extra side of sexy even in baggy pants, and Jamie gives her a quick wave.

The woman was weird as shit, but she was pretty cool.

“Speaking of, Rhodes sent us over here.” Jamie says, watching Toni leave and shut the door quietly behind her. Rhodes moves over to take her place next to Pepper, who looks both sad and relaxed after Toni’s handling.

“Oh?” Phil asks quietly and Jamie looks back at him again.

“Told us to ask you what’s so wrong with being pretty.” Jamie confirms and watches the fascinating little recoil of disgust Maria does, while Phil just goes a little bit more still than before.

Phil hesitates, glaring down at the floor for a moment.

“Is it something we need to know?” Steve asks very, very slowly, a hint of worry finally creeping in, and Jamie does _not_ like the dark way Phil looks up at him again.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Steve, but you’re very pretty yourself.” He says, then glances past him before Steve can fully process that weird remark. Jamie tilts her head, watching Phil look past them for several seconds, searchingly, before finally relaxing again. “We do _not_ speak about this to Toni, and if I find out either of you have said anything to her, we will all be very furious.” Phil informs them slowly, not quite dangerous but serious enough that Jamie can’t quite help another shudder down her spine.

“Alright.” Jamie agrees slowly and Phil nods.

“Toni has family. A mother she cares very much for. She’s also incredibly close to Bruce Banner, the victor from the year before her.” Phil begins quietly and Maria suddenly finds herself something to occupy her elsewhere. Jamie watches her go, not quite liking the dark look she wears. “President Schmidt knows this.” Phil murmurs, and Jamie likes this even less somehow. “She’s very beautiful, you know. And the Capitol loves how ruthless she was in the Games.” He pauses for a moment, taking a deep breath. “President Schmidt sells her to the highest bidder in the Capitol.” Phil says softly, and while Jamie’s still reeling from that _Jesus Fucking Christ_ moment, he adds, “Every night to another one. And if she ever says no, well. Her butler, who helped raise her, died ten years ago in an ‘accident’.”

“ _Jesus_ fucking Christ.” Jamie hisses, reaching up to rub furiously at her forehead. She accidentally does it with two hands, then remembers belatedly that she only has _one_ , which makes her even more frustrated.

“That’s…” Steve starts, and Jamie’s helplessly relieved that he sounds as horrified as she feels.

And then she feels it even worse. “Wait. _Wait_ , ten years ago?” Jamie demands and Phil grimaces before nodding. “She would’ve been eighteen.” Jamie says, and when Phil’s grimace only deepens, she flinches a little. “How long was she doing it _before_ she said no?”

“Three years.” Phil says softly and Steve flinches even harder than her. Jamie shoots her hand out, grabbing Steve’s elbow and rubbing at it with her thumb, anxiety making her heart tapdance against her ribs.

“Fifteen. Fucking _fifteen_ ? That’s… _sick_. And…” Her horror grows, and she dares a look up at Steve’s face, which is stark white with both horror of his own and the same fear that’s suddenly bubbling up in her chest. “Stevie?” Jamie questions softly, _terrified_ to ask, and Phil grimaces deeper.

“We couldn’t warn you. We have been warning victors after every game since Toni turned fifteen, but… well. They were very interested in you, Jamie.” Phil says regretfully and Steve’s arm trembles under her hand. With _fury_ , she realizes when she glances up again. “You weren’t cruel, you weren’t violent, but you were fairly ruthless in your Games. When you lost your arm… well, I suppose someone’s been keeping track of Toni, because they decided she had warned you before the games like I did with Maria’s.” Phil explains carefully, glancing down regretfully. “Well. They decided she’d crossed a line. That she’d thwarted too many potentials like her. Needless to say, Bruce Banner’s in bad shape.”

And that was like a punch to her stomach, with a fist made of ice. “ _Jesus_ ,” Jamie whispers for the umpteenth time. She looks up at Steve and feels unbelievably relieved, for the first time in her life, that her arm was gone.

If someone used Stevie like that, held a gun to his head and told her to fuck countless people just so he could keep breathing?

It would destroy them. _Both_ of them. She was pretty sure Steve would actually kill himself before he let them use them like that.

“...No fucking wonder she’s with the cause.” Jamie murmurs, horror inching back to let in space for some serious sympathy. “Poor girl. And no wonder she’s off her fuckin’ rocker.”

“Jamie,” Steve sighs softly, but it’s half-hearted at best, and Jamie shrugs a little before she moves his stupidly bulky arm out of her way so she can nuzzle into his side. It’s a purely platonic comfort (and might stay that way, if…)

If…

“Are they going to do it to him?” Jamie asks quietly, Steve’s hand settling on her bad shoulder and rubbing it slowly with his fingertips.

“It’s likely.” Phil says with no small amount of regret, and Steve flinches a little bit against her. “We’re brainstorming, but… While Steve doesn’t have family, it rather well known how close the two of you are.”

“And Jamie has brothers.” Steve adds in dark, pained realization.

“Three of them. All young.” Jamie confirms quietly, a new pain settling into her chest. If they went after Steve, they wouldn’t be able to stop them. She wouldn’t care if it was just her at risk, but her brothers needed her. “The oldest is only six.” Jamie murmurs, the words sounding distant to her own ears, and Steve hugs her even closer.

“Her mother died two years ago. She’s all they have.” Steve breathes out, horrified, and Phil looks even more pained now.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what we can do to help you, but we’re trying. The issue right now is… well, this sounds terrible, and perhaps it truly is - but Toni is _incredibly_ important to our cause. Not only is she unbelievably brilliant, giving us creations that not only match those of the Capitol’s but are _better_ , she also has a great many ties to those inside the Capitol. We can’t risk losing her. She’s absolutely necessary for us to win this rebellion.”

“And we’re chopped liver.” Jamie murmurs.

“That’s not _right_.” Steve hisses, but again, it’s half-hearted at best.

“It’s not. It’s a decision only a bastard could make, but Nick and I have made it. We can’t lose her - so now we’re trying to decide a compromise. If _anything_ happens to you, Steve, Toni will pay for it. On the other hand, none of us want you to go through what she does. None of us want _anyone_ to.” Phil says severely, reaching up to rub a thumb along his chin. “So we’re trying to find a way to keep you safe that _won’t_ destroy Toni.”

“He’s eighteen.” Jamie says suddenly, forcing herself to focus fully on the conversation. “Toni started at fifteen. Why haven’t they already approached him?”

“He was a mess after the end of the Games.” Phil points out, drawing a tiny flinch from the man in question. “That brought down his value. Not enough to remove it, or even close to, but enough that Schmidt isn’t feeling particularly pressed to make a profit off him. He…” Phil hesitates, clearing his throat. “He likely wants your first sell to be a huge boost in profits, like he did with Toni, so he wants you a little more… recovered.”

And wasn’t that just _severely fucked up_.

“What the _hell is wrong with these people_ _?_ _"_  Jamie snarls, resisting the urge to go on a rampage through the Capitol.

“And if I just never recover?” Steve asks slowly and Phil grimaces again.

“Then he’ll put a gun to Jamie’s head and tell you to pretend.”

 

* * *

 

The first week of the Games is uneventful. None of them pay much attention, which is fucked up, but it’s also necessary. None of the kids this time have any chance against the Careers - _none of them_ \- so they spend their very limited time in the Capitol working with one another discreetly. Jamie, who hasn’t known Toni very long at all (only two years), still knows enough to tell that she’s not okay.

She’s changed, and not for the first time, Jamie wonders just how bad Banner’s ‘bad shape’ was. Her flirty, sweet smiles are even more sharp than usual, even more brittle, and her walk has just a bit more sway to it than sashay.

It lasts all the way until the tenth day of the Games. They’re eating, all of the past victors-turned-mentors, separated into groups of proud Careers and the secret rebels, when Toni stumbles in after a weekend away. Rhodes is immediately leaping to his feet and heading over to her, letting her cling to him with a giggly, “Rhodey- Rhodey, look. Look what he gave me.” Toni laughs, high pitched and sluggish, and the room is awkwardly silent as she holds a hand out to him. A shimmering gold and silver (or, god forbid _platinum_ ) bracelet winds around her wrist, and for some reason, the sight of it makes her laugh harder.

“Oh, Toni,” Pepper whispers before she springs up, too, and helps Rhodes drag Toni around. She has to cross through the dining to get to the personal rooms, and Jamie can’t help but feel bad for her, having to practically parade herself just to get to her private space.

“You should’ve seen his face, Rhodey.” Toni giggles hysterically as she gets closer, and Jamie recognizes that tone - the one that means she’s about a split second from a serious mood swing. She warily looks around, seeing the same recognition in Phil’s eyes as he hurries to his feet too, but it’s too late. By the time Jamie looks back, Toni’s locked eyes on Steve, and her laughter dies a sudden, vicious death.

“Shit!” Jamie gasps before Toni lunges, half-falling out of Rhodes’ arms and onto the table, snatching up a steak knife. Jamie reaches up, grabbing for Toni’s wrist, and Steve leaps away from the table with wide eyes.

“Toni!” Rhodes shouts, Pepper clinging to Toni’s other hand, but the drunk/high/generally-fucked-up woman moves fucking fast for someone so unstable on her feet. Instead of grabbing her wrist, Jamie’s hand slides down the length of the blade, past Toni’s arm, and she nearly ends up falling throat first onto the knife.

“ _Fuck_!” Jamie hisses, belatedly regaining her balance ( _stupid_ lack of arm) and Toni shoves past, stabbing wildly at Steve.

“No!” Rhodes gasps, tackling Toni a split second before she would’ve stabbed at Steve’s stunned face. Toni goes down with a shriek that rapidly devolves into a desperate sob, and she claws at the floor, trying to get back to the knife. Steve snatches it up before she can, tossing it to Jamie who catches it by the hilt and very carefully sets it back down on the table. Her hand is throbbing viciously, blood rushing from the gash that goes from the base of her middle finger to halfway down her forearm. She snatches up her napkin and presses her hand hard to her stomach, squishing the napkin against her wounded limb.

“It doesn’t matter!” Toni wails, scrambling even without a knife, and Steve steps away from her quickly, just in case.

“Damn, it Toni.” Rhodes hisses, wide-eyed with fear, and Toni sobs utterly heartbroken tears into the carpet. She doesn’t try to speak any more, which is a _damn_ good thing, because Jamie somehow gets the feeling that she isn’t all there right now, and she’d probably say something stupid and incriminating.

“Let’s get her out of here.” Phil mutters quietly, grabbing Toni’s wrists and holding them loosely to her lower back. Rhodes tucks his arms under her, rolling her onto her back, and her face is twisted with agonized grief, eyes squeezed shut, and Jamie has to look away.

“Come on.” Pepper says softly, Rhodes lifting her up with Phil still holding her wrists together, and the three of them escort the hysterical woman away.

Jamie watches her go, feeling more like she’d just got stabbed in the heart than the hand. “Let me see that.” Steve says softly, eyes tight and posture stiff, and Jamie tears her eyes away from the escaping party to meet Steve’s instead. Steve gently peels her hand away from her stomach, napkin sticking and stained solid red, and Nick Fury steps up with a small grimace.

“Come with me. I have a kit.” Nick says lowly and Jamie nods, too tired to argue.

It doesn’t stop her from glaring so furiously at the staring Careers across the room that they’re actually intimidated enough to look away.

Dicks.

 

* * *

 

Toni loves Bruce Banner.

It’s one of the few facts of the world. The sun shines, water’s wet, and Toni Stark loves Bruce Banner.

She loved him when she was thirteen and he was the only person in the world who was kind to _her_ , not her adorable psychopath facade. He laughed so hard when she called Tiara (seriously, fucking _Tiara_ ) a nutjob that she couldn’t help but adore him for that. No one laughed at her comments. It was always either a look of shock to hear such language from a thirteen year old, or condescension.

It didn’t change until she was fifteen and found her life falling apart around her. It was hard to condescend the fifteen year old who's virginity you just stole. It was hard to scold someone for their language when you were buying their body with a gun to the heads of everyone they loved.

But Bruce, Bruce was different. He didn’t need to fuck her to treat her like a human being. He didn’t need to touch her to love her.

And after she has a particularly bad weekend with a particularly shitty customer, after Toni’s too drugged and too _ruined_ to think clearly, after Toni breaks down and laughs in Schmidt’s face and tell him _no_ … well, then Bruce is the only one left who’s ever made her a _better person_.

Even her mother couldn’t claim that.

Bruce Banner was good. Bruce Banner was _pure_.

Part of her hates Jamie for ruining that. Most of her knows that’s bullshit, though, and if she could hate Schmidt anymore than she already did, she would hate him instead. But she can’t, and she also can’t hate Jamie. The girl didn’t know, and she was like Toni - a _lot_ like Toni, except even better.

Jamie regret the things she did in the Games, even if she didn’t let that slow her down. Toni didn’t. She'd killed so many of them and she didn't even care enough to know any of their names. 

Toni didn’t regret a damn thing, except that the Games existed to begin with. “We should just build a time machine.” Toni murmurs to Bruce, running her thumb over his misshapen hands. Misshapen, because of what Jamie did.

Incidentally, of course, Toni reminds herself. She reminds herself to _admire_ Jamie, not _hate_ her, because the woman had no idea. None.

No one did.

Ignorant fuckers.

“You make me a better person.” Toni whispers to him, reaching out with her other hand to brush his hair out of his face. His hair is still soft, at odd with the rough surface of his ruined face. “You always have.” Toni says, squeezing his mutated green hand and standing up. “I’d burn the world for you.”

She means it, too.

She means it, and Bruce would stop her if he could. He was gentle like that. He _made her better_.

But Bruce wasn’t there anymore, not really. So Toni pulls her hand away and heads to the Capitol, and plans on how exactly she _will_ burn it to the fucking ground for him.

She’s never really held it together. That was Bruce’s job when she was home, and Rhodey’s job when she was in the Capitol. Toni just can’t do it. There’s too much, there’s _so fucking much_ wrong that she can’t keep a grip on her own person alone, so she needs help.

She makes it through the first year easily. Rhodey’s there for her in the Capitol, and Maria, her mother, helps somewhat when she’s home. Not enough, not really, but… but enough for her to hang on until Bruce gets better.

But then Bruce _doesn’t_ get better, and the next year is agony for her. She turns to drugs, which is terrifying, because usually she only gets drugged when her _customers_ force it on her. But she needs it, and it calms her enough to function, even if it makes her 'episodes' a little bit worse.

By the third year, she’s not sure there’s any of her _left_. It doesn’t feel like it. Bruce is gone ( _gone, gone, gone_ ) and her mother is tired and old and even Rhodey can’t keep her in hand. Even with Pepper, sweet Pepper who’s even more pure than Brucie, they can’t keep her _there_.

She knows she’s fucked (hah) when Schmidt sells her for a weekend to the same asshole who bought her virginity. He likes to take her out for a spin every couple of years, see how she’s _improved_ , how much further she’ll let him go. She’s not sure there’s anything left she _won’t_ do for these sick fuckers, especially when she’s as drugged as she is. He doesn’t like it when she slurs at him, and she gets punished for it - but it doesn’t matter because she can’t really feel it anyways. She certainly can’t _care_.

But then he wraps a stunningly beautiful bracelet around her wrist and kisses her like he _loves_ her, like _Bruce_ should be kissing her, and Toni can’t quite help the way she starts to cry. “Hush,” he whispers like the sick idiot he is. “I’ll see you again soon, little bird. You’re still so beautiful.” He croons, petting her face before he lets her go.

She laughs, clinging to Rhodey and giggling when she really wants to cry, but it’s just so funny. Thirteen years, now, she’s been a whore. Thirteen years, and someone can still call her beautiful. It’s insane. They have no idea how _insane_ they are, to look at her, to look at what _they’ve done to her_ , and still call her beautiful.

She almost wishes Howard was still alive. “Look at me now, Dad.” She’d laugh, just as hysterically as she laughs while hanging off Rhodey. “Look what happened. Still proud I was a victor? Still what you _wanted_ , Dad?”

And then she sees Steve.

Steve Rogers, blonde hair and hard muscular and soft face, and she thinks, _beautiful_.

She goes for a knife. _It’s for your own good,_ she thinks hysterically, trying to slide her pretty little knife down his pretty little face. Phil wouldn’t let her warn him, wouldn’t let her _save him_ , so she’ll do it herself. _It’s for your own good,_ Toni thinks, and pictures Brucie, _knows_ that they’ll kill him, and thinks, _it’ll be better for him, too_.

“You can’t do this.” Rhodey murmurs after he’s dragged her away, sobbing brokenly against him. Phil’s tied her hands behind her back and now he and Pepper are strategically searching her rooms, removing anything too sharp or breakable. Toni curls up on her blankets, too soft and silky and _too fucking Capitol_ , and wishes desperately that she _could_ kill herself.

But she couldn’t bring herself to. She _wouldn’t_ , no matter how fucked up she was, no matter how much booze her customer forced down her throat (among other things, and _that_ drags a strangled laugh from her that doesn’t fit in the depressed, smothering atmosphere of her bedroom), because she _won’t_ die without taking Schmidt with her.

No matter what else he takes from her, she’ll make _damn_ sure she takes him with her.

“Toni.” Phil says, announcing his return to the room, and he slides a hand under her head to lift her up a little. She glares at him halfheartedly for it, torn between crying more and turning her head to bite his arm. “You need to drink this.” Phil instructs, and then presses a glass to her lips and tilts it. She has half a mind to keep her mouth closed as a fuck you, but the liquid runs up to her nose and she panics, hastily chugging the fluid.

It tastes like mint, which makes her immediately whine in protest. It’ll neutralize the alcohol in her body, but she doesn’t want to sober up.

But Phil’s hands are firm and her hands are tied up, so she has no choice. By the end of it, when he finally pulls the glass away, her head is spinning and she has to take several deep breaths to get it to stop. By then, Phil’s pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable at her bedside. He doesn’t look angry, but there’s a weird mix of understanding, regret, and disappointment on his face that’s hard for her to look at. “Toni. You have an interview tomorrow, remember?” Phil says softly, and her stomach drops.

Her head spins again, this time with shock, because Jesus Christ that’s _right_. It’s Monday now.

Monday. He’d taken her away on Friday.

Toni’s laughing again and it takes her a minute to even realize it. “Fuck. _Fuck_ , of course I do.” Toni laughs hoarsely.

“Toni…” Rhodey says sadly, touching her arm, and Toni flinches, laughter dying. “Why did you do that? You know what he’ll do…”

She’s torn between laughing again and violence. Violence wins and she snaps her teeth at Rhodey’s hand, which jerks sharply back, and she thinks she hears Pepper make a soft, frightened noise across the room. _That_ makes her calm down, though she still glares at Rhodey for a few seconds longer. “Let him do it.” Toni spits, turning her fierce glare onto Phil’s sad face instead. “Let him. _Fucking let him_. Just don’t…” Toni has to pause and take a deep breath before she can say, “Don’t let him do this to Steve.”

The next day, she puts on a beautiful azure dress that makes her blue eyes light up. It’s a halter top and with a low cut back, just barely covering her asscrack, and the fabric flows flatteringly over her breasts. She curls her hair into soft, shiny black waves and goes out to meet Caesar with a warm smile, laughing brightly when he kisses her cheek.

“There are rumors you had a run in fellow victor Steve Rogers last night. Some are even saying that you came at him with a _knife_.” Caesar says dramatically near the end of the interview, acting aghast. “Do you have anything to say about that?” Caesar asks her. Toni recognizes it as the thorny olive branch is it, so she throws her head back and laughs.

“A butter knife, sure!” Toni laughs, then flashes a brilliant smile and turns to the adoring crowd. “Never insult a woman’s shoes,” She jokes with a wink and the crowd laughs.

 

Fucking psychopaths, and they’re dragging her down with them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to do some gender swaps, ofc, given the nature of the Hunger Games. Since Natasha and Wanda are literally the only two females in the Avengers, and Maria the only one in SHIELD, I was rapidly running out of districts for the others. So I ended up swapping a couple of them around. I hope that you like my choices and the way they turned out, I tried to stay as in character with them as I realistically could, given the whole AU thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the main stars come into the picture, and figure if they're going to die anyways, they might as well mess with people on the way down - and maybe incite a little rebellion along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “And I will stay up through the night,  
> And let’s be clear, won’t close my eyes,  
> And I know that I can survive,  
> I’ll walk through fire to save my life.”

 

* * *

 

 

Pietro and Wanda Maximoff were twins, born in District 8 to two parents that died too young for either of them to remember. They were orphans and had spent their lives raising one another, stealing scraps and filching cloth when they needed it. It wasn’t an easy life, and being an orphan in District 8 was particularly hard. There were no farms to rob in the middle of the night, no grass to sleep on, no trees to shelter under. District 8 was a factory District, filled with fumes and hideous metal buildings.

But the twins were resourceful, and they were skilled.

That skill is the only thing that gives them a chance when their luck runs out.

First went Pietro, at the terrifying age of sixteen. Older than most, to be sure, but when facing Career tributes you needed all of the experience of age you could get. But he was sixteen, and both he and his sister were _terrified_.

“Come home,” Wanda commands him, eyes wet but voice strong, and Pietro smiles weakly at her. “Do whatever you have to, just _come home_.”  
  
“I will.” Pietro swears, and only then does she let herself cry.

They take him away before she stops, guiding him onto the train to head for the Capitol for the 70th Hunger Games.

He comes back. He promised, after all.

His life of crime gives him just enough of an edge, and he uses all of his speed, his agility, and his stealth to fight and _win_.

Two years later, it’s Wanda’s turn, and she does much of the same. But Wanda’s always been more ferocious than her kind-hearted brother, so while he avoided fights he couldn’t win, Wanda faces them head on with sheer brutality. She uses a knife she’d stolen from her first victim to cut a bloody swath through the rest.

She doesn’t regret it. _They_ put her in the Games, _they_ force the deaths of twenty-three children. All _she_ did was survive. All _she_ did was picture Pietro, waiting at home for her, and it made it easy for her to kill with single-minded thoroughness. All she did was go _home_.

The regret comes the following year, for the 73rd Hunger Games. They both go, along with the two new tributes and two Mentors, so that they can learn to be Mentors themselves. It’s on the second day of pre-Game training that they’re both pulled side by President Schmidt himself.

“You will do as I say, and you will do it _wonderfully_. One complaint against either of you, and I’ll kill the other.” Schmidt warns them, calm and smooth and all the more dangerous for it.

Then he explains his plans for them.

Wanda vomits the second they’re in their assigned quarters. Pietro holds her tightly, eyes wide and breathing too quick, and Wanda curls against him.

“This is sick. It’s _sick_ ,” Wanda spits, barely able to even _think_ about what President Schmidt wants them to do. Apart and… and _together_.

Pietro shudders, holding her even tighter - so tight it’s hard for her to breathe.

“The Games never end, do they? We’re never going to be free.” Wanda murmurs and Pietro cries quietly into her hair.

It’s about three hours after that that Steve Rogers and Toni Stark show up on their doorstep, looking determined and so very understanding that Wanda only feels even more sick. Suddenly, their never ending string of dates in the Capitol make a lot more, horrifying sense to her.

“We’re here to help. We’re going to do everything we can to minimize this.” Steve assures them solemnly, and Toni steps forward to tightly hug Wanda.

Her voice is fierce and angry when she whispers, “You’re not alone. We’re going to help you.”

There’s no stopping President Schmidt, not with the lines already drawn so firmly against Toni, but perhaps - if the two of them _volunteer_ \- they can take the attention off the twins.

 

* * *

 

Clint Barton lived a pretty interesting life in District Twelve, he thought. His parents died when he was young, so his brother Barney raised him.

Well. ‘Raised’.

Barney’s idea of raising him essentially meant he pretended Clint didn’t exist while still letting him live in his home.

Of course, that didn’t count for much. It just gave Clint a safe place to sleep. Barney got extra money and rations for having a ‘child’ living with him, but most of that either went into his own stomach or into booze from the Hob. So Clint did what he had to to survive on his own. He used his dad’s old hunting bow, snuck out under the ‘electrified’ fence ( _definitely_ not electrified), and hunted game. The game he didn’t eat himself he’d sell, usually in the Hob, to the Mayor (sneaky devil), or to the nearby bakers.

May and Ben Parker were both great people, so he tended to sell to their bakery more than anywhere else. He’d sell to the Mayor only when he wanted something a little special (a group of rabbits for, say, five strawberries), or to the Hob when he was really desperate (five squirrels for the payment of only two).

Hunting was what he did, and he was pretty good at it, too. It was more than enough to carry him along, and on the worst months of winter when he couldn’t catch enough to feed himself, Peter Parker tended to sneak him bread while May pretended she didn’t see a thing.

It was an interesting life, at least for someone from Twelve, and he enjoyed it.

Well.

Except for the part where he has his name in the Games a grand total of _eighteen times_ at only seventeen years old. Bread wasn’t enough during the cold months, though it certainly helped a lot, so Clint had done what he had to to get himself extra rations when Barney wouldn’t share. It meant he has a hell of a lot of anxiety when it came time for the drawings, though.

This year’s is the drawing for the 74th Hunger Games - one year before the next Quarter Quell, which was sure to be _extra interesting_. Or whatever those sick people in the Capitol liked to describe it as.

 _Eighteen times_ , he can’t help but think, feeling a little dizzy as they all line up. He feels kind of sick, really. “Are you going to puke?” Peter Parker, a fourteen year old little shit asks, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. He looks more impressed than alarmed, so Clint glares at him. “Aim for Effie’s shoes.”

“She’d strangle me with her wig,” Clint chokes out, struggling not to laugh or actually genuinely puke now.

“Extra entertainment.” Peter says cheerfully and Clint snickers a little bit. The kid brightens immediately, so Clint rolls his eyes and looks ahead, where Effie and Phil - District Twelve’s only living victor - stand on the stage. Cameras hover behind them, probably live casting right to the Capitol’s horrible public.

“Sick bastards,” Clint mutters and Peter snickers this time.

They both fall silent as the massive screens surrounding the stage start playing a video. It’s the same video as always, talking about how all the Districts were monsters for rebelling seventy-four years ago, blah blah blah. About how the games are about _honor_ and _bravery_. Bullshit.

It ends before Clint can get too bitchy about it, at least.

“Happy Hunger Games!” Effie chimes brightly as she steps up to the podium.

“Is she delusional?” Clint asks in disgust. It’s not a damn _holiday_. She’s _happy_ about them sending off two kids to die in some ridiculous bloodbath of _entertainment_.

“Well look at her outfit,” Peter points out, which brightens his mood very, very slightly.

“May the odds be ever in your favour.” Effie sweeps on with a wide smile. “It’s time to begin the drawing. As always, Ladies first.” Effie adds before walking rather ridiculously over to the first glass ball. Her skirt’s too tight - way too tight - and her feet can barely move two inches apart with each step.

“Capitol people are so _weird_ ,” Peter whispers and Clint nods his agreement.

Effie pulls out a paper and waddles back before she clears her throat primly. “Yelena Romanoff.” She calls, and Clint’s stomach drops out.

He doesn’t know Yelena, but he knows her sister - Natasha Romanoff was in his class when he still went to school. She wasn’t a very _nice_ person, perhaps, but she was nice _enough_ that Clint liked her. He bites his lip and looks over, trying to see her or her baby sister. He doesn’t remember how old Yelena is, but… poor Natasha, really.

The girl’s crowd parts slowly, allowing him to see an anxious blonde girl - barely twelve, from the looks of her, and that’s even worse - inching away from the others. “Oh, man,” Peter whispers sadly and Clint grimaces even deeper.

She had no chance, none at all. Hell, in District Twelve the word ‘tribute’ was pretty much equivalent to ‘dead’ as it was, but at only twelve years old? She was _doomed_. Toni Stark held the record for youngest victor at thirteen, and the second youngest was fifteen, if he remembers right. Besides, Stark was... definitely a special case. 

“Yelena!” Natasha suddenly screams, breaking through the crowd and snatching up her baby sister before she can reach the stage.

A couple of the Peacekeepers step forward, but before they can do anything, Natasha sets Yelena back down again and whips around. “I volunteer!” She shouts, voice cracking, and Clint winces at the raw emotion in her tone. “I volunteer as tribute.”

The silence is deafening.

Clint isn’t sure they’ve _ever_ had a volunteer before, and… well, it’s Natasha.

She’s good. There’ve always been rumors around her and Phil Coulson - not of the _ew_ kind but hints that he might be training her for some reason. Clint’s seen the way she moves, all agile and quick, but _still,_ they haven’t had a victor in twenty-four years.

Natasha’s got a better chance of breaking that streak than anyone else in District Twelve, even him. But watching her protectively cover Yelena, who screams desperately for her to stop, to take it back, to not volunteer - it’s not exactly inspiring hope. It’s just kind of _heartbreaking_.

“I see. We have a volunteer!” Effie says slowly, shocked, and Natasha whips around again, falling to a crouch and grabbing Yelena’s shoulders.

“Yelena, you have to go - go back to mom,” Natasha urges, but Yelena’s sobbing now.

“Please don’t go, Nat! Please!” Yelena wails and Natasha shoves her away. Someone breaks away from their crowd, Jasper if Clint remembers right, and scoops Yelena up. Natasha turns away and climbs onto the stage, Yelena’s hysterical pleas echoing around them as she’s carried quickly away.

“Well! What an occasion!” Effie says brightly, apparently immune to heartbreak, whereas even Clint feels a little choked up.

 _Poor kid,_ he thinks, and doesn’t envy her for the survivors guilt she’s going to be trapped with.

“Tell us, then, what is your name?” Effie asks, sticking the mic under Natasha’s mouth. Her eyes are a little bit damp, but other than that, her expression and voice are firm as she speaks.

“Natasha Romanoff.”

“I see! I’d bet my buttons that was your sister, then. Didn’t want her to steal all of the glory?” Effie questions and Natasha offers a sharp nod.

Yeah, totally.

Glory. The glory of being brutally murdered on live TV for fun and profit.

“Let’s all give a round of applause for our first volunteer!” Effie cries, and then the stupid woman actually starts clapping.

No one else does. Clint’s never been more proud to be from Twelve in his life than now, when _no one_ claps. It’s the boldest form of dissent they can possibly get away with.

 _We do not condone this,_ is the general emotion the crowd gives off. And then slowly people start to touch their lips and lift up three fingers.

It’s an old and rarely used gesture in Twelve, used to say thanks or goodbye to someone you love - typically at funerals. Clint and Peter both do it as well, and soon enough, he can’t see anyone but the Peacekeepers _not_ doing it.

Slowly, Effie looks over them all before she clears her throat loudly into the microphone and smiles. “What an _exciting_ day. Now for the boys!” Effie says, and oh, right.

 _There’s_ his anxiety. Almost forgot about that.

Uhg.

Effie heads for the other glass ball, swirling her hand around in it like this is _fun_. Finally she pulls out a paper and strides back up to the podium, stops next to Natasha, and opens it up. “Peter Parker.” She calls, lifting her head to look around expectantly.

“Fuck.” Clint hisses, shocked, and Peter goes dead still next to him. The others around them inch away, but Peter doesn’t move, and neither does Clint.

Peter.

The kid’s only fifteen. He’s only a baker, living with his aunt and uncle who _adore_ him, who are far too old to have any children of their own. He’s all they _have_ , and Peter has _no_ chance in the arena.

 _None_.

Clint squeezes his eyes shut, hearing Peter’s feet finally start shifting, slow and terrified steps. _He has no chance,_ Clint thinks despairingly, and does the only thing he can do.

_God damn… Oh, fuck it._

He forces himself to open his eyes, forces himself to _move_ , and overtakes Peter. He sets a hand on his head, so much shorter than his own, and ruffles it halfheartedly before he breaks free from the crowd. “I volunteer as tribute.” Clint calls before he can second guess himself, keeping his face and voice as calm as he can.

 

* * *

 

The train ride is disgustingly horrible. Full of decadent food and fabrics and furniture and _everything Twelve doesn’t get to have._

It’s sickening.

On the bright side, Clint learns that Phil’s a pretty neat guy and that Natasha has an amazing resting bitch face. “You’ll be separated and sent off with your own team of stylists. Do _everything_ they say, and don’t complain.” Phil warns them, the only piece of advice he’s offered them so far, and then sweeps on before Clint can ask. “It’ll be miserable, but you’re relying on them to make you look good. Don’t tempt them to mess things up or you’ll be the one paying for it.”

“Right. Got it.” Clint agrees slowly while Natasha just nods and goes back to eating a weird thing called a ‘brownie’. Cleverly named after its browness.

‘Miserable’, as it turns out, is a huge understatement. He didn’t know what ‘waxing’ even was until they did it to his junk and _man_ does he regret volunteering.

And _then_ , to make things better, Portia - his costume artist - decides to light him on fire.

“I’ll rip your cape off if you rip mine off.” Natasha hisses to them when they meet again, both of their stylists waiting with small matches. They’re guided to a chariot, which they both hop up onto, and watch the other teams slowly funnel out. The Capitol waits ahead, screaming and cheering the second the first pair - from District One - heads out.

“Deal.” Clint mutters to her, briefly taking notice of a small pin on Natasha’s chest. A mockingjay, he thinks. What a weird thing to take as a token from their District. Then again, what would he know? He didn’t take a token at all.

And then they light their cloaks on fire. “Remember, look attractive.” Natasha’s stylist advises before the chariot starts to inch away. “And hold hands!” He yells after them.

Which sounds dubious as hell, but Natasha instantly snags his hand, so he just sighs and twines her fingers with his. “This place is _creepy_ ,” Clint mutters to her the second their chariot breaks free into the open air. The crowd, pressed up on both sides, starts _screaming_ at them they’re so excited about their outfits.

It’s definitely an improvement on the reaction of vague weirdness for that particularly memorable Games when the Twelve tributes were left naked and covered in coal dust.

“It _really_ is,” Natasha hisses back, but then she looks up at the crowd and _beams_.

It’s the nicest smile Clint has ever seen, but he forces himself to look away and smile at the other half the crowd. Flowers rain down around them, and he’s pretty sure he hears Natasha blowing kisses, so he lifts his free hand and waves with it, grinning as charmingly as he can.

Crazy nutjobs eat it up.

That night, after President Snow’s annoyingly long speech of the same honor crap no one but the Capitol will ever fall for, all six of them gather up after dinner. Him, Natasha, Phil, Effie, Portia, and Natasha’s stylist, Cinna.

It’s weird that they have their own penthouse, but being from District Twelve means they get the twelfth - and therefore the top - floor. “You want to watch this, both of you. Study it.” Phil starts before he turns on the TV.

Caesar Flickerman is on, chattering away with last year’s victor - some guy from District One named Silk, which would’ve been a ridiculous name for a _woman_ but is even worse for an ugly, butch guy like him. “Why are we watching this?” Natasha asks curiously, leaning forward to watch the interview intently.

It’s already rounding to a close, so he’s not surprised when Phil says, “We aren’t. It’s the next guests you want to be interested in.”

The plural makes him curious, so Clint settles in for the long haul.

“As much as I’d like to stay and watch this - I _do_ so love that couple - I need to get some rest.” Effie says heavily, forcing herself to her feet. Cinna and Portia leave as well, and by the time Silk’s interview is over, it’s just the three of them left.

 _“And now with me are the Capitol’s two_ _**favorite** stars, the wonderfully _ _**delicious** Steve Rogers and the eternally beautiful, Toni Stark!” _ Caesar cries, throwing out an arm to gesture to the two now emerging from the curtains beside the stage. Steve Rogers leads the pair, dressed clean and with his blonde hair neatly in place, and Toni Stark follows right behind him. As well groomed as Steve is, Toni still dominates the stage with her wicked grin and outgoing chatter. Steve’s quiet but warm, whereas Toni is all sharp wit and gleaming teeth.

“Nat, I want you to watch Toni in particular,” Phil says quietly so not to talk over the interview, “Clint, get a bit of both.”

He nods, leaning forward on his knees to watch.

The interview is… interesting.

Caesar starts with Steve, teasing about his new string of lovers. Steve immediately rubs the back of his head and grins sheepishly, explaining that he’s just ‘not finding the right one’ for him, and gets several ‘aww’s from the audience for it. Caesar asks Toni if the rumors about her and District Four’s Pepper Potts have any validity and she laughs, bright and crisp.

 _“I don’t think I myself_ **_or_ ** _my Capitol fans are quite ready for me to settle down, Caesar,”_ she says, winking with a sly smile at the crowd, who immediately cheer at her.

“She’s good.” Natasha muses, narrowed eyes locked on the screen.

“They both are.” Clint agrees. “And they’re pretty opposite, too. He’s adorably innocent and she’s all sex appeal,” Clint determines, gaining a small nod from Phil.

 _“I’m glad to see you’ve resolved your issues over a poorly chosen shoe comment,”_ Caesar teases, which goes right over Clint’s head, but it makes Toni laugh so hard she doubles over and Steve can’t stop chuckling sheepishly himself.

 _“I learned my lesson, I guess.”_ Steve offers lightly and Toni covers her mouth with her hand, laughing still.

They watch for another thirty minutes before the interview comes to a close and Phil turns off the TV, turning to face them both. “Tomorrow you’ll begin three days of group training. Typically, mentors only begin interview coaching the day before the interviews, which are in six days. Instead, I’m going to start tomorrow night. You’ll be exhausted, but I’ll need you to watch videos on a few victors I’ve selected for you. Natasha, I think you’ll do best imitating Toni Stark as she is now, combined with a bit of Jamie Barnes during her Games. She won the 66th.”

“Ah.” Natasha acknowledges with a small, thoughtful frown.

“As for you,” Phil sweeps on, turning to Clint, “I want you to aim for a combination of Steve Rogers and James Rhodes - who won the 58th Games.”

“Er. Charming and adorable?” Clint asks doubtfully and gets a tiny lip twitch from his stoic mentor for that.

“Quite. More charming than adorable, I should think. James Rhodes isn’t adorable himself - but he carries himself with confidence and seemingly never ending patience. Confidence and charm should fit you perfectly.”

“Are you saying I’m not sexy enough to be Toni Stark?” Clint questions and get another tiny twitch for that. Natasha outright smiles, though, shooting him an amused look.

“Maybe if you took your pants off?” Natasha suggests, waggling her eyebrows indecently, and Clint chokes on a snicker.

“Natasha…” Phil sighs and Clint swallows down the rest of his laughter, forcing himself to focus again. “As for your training tomorrow,” Phil says slowly, staring down Natasha until the last of her smile dies away, “I already know extensively what Natasha can do in combat. What about you, Clint?” It takes him a second to respond, because he’s taken off guard by the subtle admission that he _totally WAS training Natasha, the rumors were right!_

Man, if only he could tell Peter. The little brat would be _ecstatic._

“Uh. Depends on whether or not I can admit to _hypothetically_  breaking the law in this room.” Clint says with a doubtful glance around.

“No bugs. I’m friends with Stark, actually.” Phil explains with a small shrug. Clint blinks at him owlishly, taken off guard by that.

“My condolences.” He offers, and gives himself another pat on the back when Phil actually smiles for a split second before the man remembers that’s against his moral code or something. “I live off game I illegally hunt myself. I probably have, like, five hundred executions lined up if someone’s keeping track of the things I bring in.” Clint adds the last part thoughtfully. Five hundred sounds like it’s probably a big understatement, actually.

“Traps?”

“Bow.” Clint corrects and Phil’s eyebrows rise, looking briefly startled. “And traps, a little bit.”

“Well, well. We’ve got two real tributes this year, huh?” Phil murmurs thoughtfully, looking past them now. He sets one arm on his armrest, resting the side of his head into his fist. “Do you two know each other at all?” He asks after several somewhat uncomfortable moments.

Clint exchanges a glance with Natasha. “Not really.”

“We went to class together. I know he has a very good singing voice.” Natasha offers with a faint shrug. Clint blinks at her.

“I do?”

For some reason, she looks at him like he’s a moron.

He likes this girl more and more.

“Consider me made aware.” Clint says solemnly and she rolls her eyes, lips twitching slightly before she looks back at Phil.

Phil watches the two of them intently. After several _more_ uncomfortable seconds, he straightens up and leans forward, eyes narrowing. “How would you two feel about a star-crossed lover approach?”

Both of them stare at him again.

“...Pretty weirded out and kind of uncomfortable around you?” Clint offers slowly.

Phil shoots him a mildly reproachful look for that.

“What? That was a pretty weird question. I think I’m entitled to be a little creeped out.”

“Clint,” Natasha huffs, rolling her eyes, and Clint frowns a little. “Why exactly do you want us to do that, Phil?”

Phil doesn’t immediately answer. At first, he looks slowly around the room, keeping an eye out for something unknown. Then he falls into a deep, thoughtful silence. _Finally_ , he slowly speaks in a tone so deathly serious that Clint and Natasha both straighten up at the sound of it. “What would the two of you say if I told you we want you to work together, to pretend to be in love with one another, to plant the initial seeds of a rebellion?”

Clint’s too shell shocked, too completely caught off guard, to answer at all.

So Natasha’s the one who leans forward and says, “I’d ask where we start.”

All he can do is nod, shocked but eager.

 

* * *

 

Training is... boring, really. Both Clint and Natasha are forbidden from showing off too much, so Clint's not even allowed to touch a bow. Natasha focuses on learning about poisonous plants, so Clint takes the day to expand his knowledge on traps. Two basic skills that everyone else overlooks, but will probably be pretty useful in the arena.

Their interviews go pretty smoothly as well. They go last and Natasha, as the female tribute, goes before him. She's all beaming, warm smiles and carefully flirtatious poses for the interview, and near the end she slips in a few hints about having a 'special someone'. She goes for shyness at the end, blushing and everything - which Clint didn't even know someone could  _do_ on command. 

By the time it's Clint's turn, the audience is already hooked and ready to sinker. He's the one that gets to drop the bomb about him dating Natasha, and he natters on about her with the most adorable, crooked grin he can manage. The audience eats it up and even Phil, who knows it's a farce, can't complain when they get back to their rooms.

"We might get you both out of this yet." He says quietly, nodding sharply at them before they all go to bed.

The night ends on a good note, but the next day starts off with them going into the arena. 

The Games are hell. Even more so than Clint expected them to be. He isn’t built for charging the Cornucopia - his skills all lie in long ranged, none of this mash up blood bath bullshit going on - but Natasha’s perfect for it. While he clumsily guards her back, they rush in and she ninja’s the ever living shit out of any idiot who gets too close to them, while Clint pretends to be useful until she manages to snag him a bow.

 _Then_ he actually is useful, though he still just covers her back as they beat a hasty retreat for the treeline. “Did you just kill a man with your thighs?” Clint asks, awed, and Natasha shoots him a wicked smirk over her shoulder. _Toni Stark, indeed,_ Clint thinks distractedly.

“I got into a lot of fights in Twelve.” She explains, which he takes to mean, _Phil taught me to be a complete badass, want to see more?_

“This is probably weird, but I think I might actually want to marry you.” Clint informs her, imitating her running jump over a falling tree trunk. He has no idea where she’s leading him, but hell if he isn’t going to follow.

Plus, her butt looks _great_ in those pants - even if it's not _exactly_ his type.

“Sorry, darling, but you need to make a better proposal than that.”

“I’d sing for you, but that might ruin the whole stealth thing.”

“Probably be worth it, though. Hey, there’s an idea - you sing, and I’ll drop from the treetops to kill anyone lured in by your siren’s call.” Natasha suggests brightly and startles a laugh from him,

“ _Siren’s call_? How _indecent_ , Miss Romanoff.”

“It worked on me, didn’t it?” Natasha asks flirtatiously and he can’t help the grin splitting his face.

Act or not, Natasha might be the funnest person he’s ever met.

 

* * *

 

They make it five days before things go to shit. They get cornered up a tree by the Career Pack ( _dick_ pack, in his professional opinion) and make their grand escape only after Rue, the tiny little girl from Eleven, climbs up a tree several feet away and point out a nearby Tracker Jacker nest to them.

Clint bravely makes the climb (Natasha glares daggers at him until he reluctantly 'volunteers'), aims his bow, and prays to every god that ever was (hell, he even prays to _Schmidt_ , who’s as close to a god as he’s ever seen, really) and fires an arrow at it. The arrow tears through the thin fibers holding the nest to the branch, dropping it like an angrily buzzing rock onto the group.

Glimmer, the girl from One, doesn’t make it. Clint doesn’t remember much of that, because one particularly pissed off Tracker Jacker gets him in the back of his hand.

He doesn’t pass out, but he’s incoherent and messed up enough that he barely makes it down the tree, and then has to be half carried by Natasha to safety. Rue bravely stands against Cato, who tries to come back for vengeance on his dead gal pal, and nails him in the eye with a rock. Natasha drops Clint, goes for Cato with a knife, and the teen suffers a sudden bout of intelligence and high tails it the fuck out of there.

He still doesn’t pass out, but he’s dazed as all hell and starts imagining creatures so bizarre he can’t really describe them. Rue treats his hand and Natasha rewards her with food and one night of protected rest.

Clint wakes up feeling much better, and the three of them end up in an awkward, tense alliance. Neither of them _want_ to ally with Rue. The kid’s adorable, she’s sweet, and she has no chance of surviving. It’s painful, and it’ll only be more painful later, but they can’t chase the tiny thing away.

“She doesn’t deserve this.” Natasha mutters.

Three days later, she says the same thing.

“She didn’t deserve this.” Natasha whispers, watching the Capitol hovercraft take Rue’s body away. Killed by Marvel, who was killed by Clint. An arrow to his dirty rotten face.

“Killed him too fast.” Clint mutters bitterly and Natasha sighs softly, watching a second craft come for that body, too.

At least they’d blown up the Career’s stockpile. The remaining two, Cato and Clover, had no advantage over them now.

“Why’d you volunteer?” Natasha asks him suddenly, sitting down next to him on a fallen log.

Clint looks sideways at her, blinking slowly in confusion.

“I know you’re close to Peter, but… I didn’t think you were _that_ close.”

“It’s complicated.” Clint admits, tapping his fingers against his knee. “Peter’s got a good family. He’s an orphan, you know? But his aunt and uncle, they’re good people. They’ve helped me out in the past, during the bad months.” Clint says slowly, grimacing softly. “I just… I knew Peter wouldn’t make it. He’s a great kid, he didn’t deserve that, but I was thinking about his aunt and his uncle too. They love him. I didn’t want his family destroyed like that.” Clint trails off quietly. He hesitates, replaying the conversation in his head, and turns towards Natasha with a slightly fearful but mostly playful smile.

He doesn’t want the Capitol thinking his words _too_ rebellious, so he quickly tags on, “Besides, I couldn’t let you do this on your own, could I?”

Natasha rolls her eyes immediately and climbs back to her feet. “Oh, please. If I didn’t have to lug you around, I’d already have won this by now.”

“Big words for someone too scared to poke a Tracker Jacker nest.” Clint teases smugly, moving to stand up as well. Natasha takes a step back, just in time for a fireball to whistle by and burn into the tops of her thighs, dead on the space she’d just occupied.

For a moment, Clint can only stare in wide-eyed shock as Natasha cries out, staggering backwards. Then the fireball hits a tree and explodes into flames, and Clint lurches forward to grab her. “Nat, move!” Clint roars, ducking under another fireball. Fire _roars_ behind him but he doesn’t dare look, focusing forward as he half-carries, half-drags Natasha as fast as he can.

They make it, narrowly.

The flames are converging on them from both sides when Natasha loses her footing and drags him careening right over the edge of a steep hill. Clint does the only thing he can - he tucks Natasha as tight against him as he can, covering her head with his hands, and rolls them down the hill as flames roar above them. By the time they crash into a deep creek below, the flames are firmly behind them.

Unfortunately, the Career Pack’s remnants are dead ahead, and Clint curses harshly before he simply flings Natasha onto his back and bolts.

She doesn’t protest, breathing heavily and shakily against his back, and he knows even though she doesn’t cry that she must be in _agony_ \- but he ignores that and focuses on finding shelter first.

 

* * *

 

The Gamekeeper announces that two tributes can win these Games if they’re from the same District. Neither of them believe it for a second, but they act like it anyways. They cling to one another, they murmur ‘thank god’s, and they act like it’s the best thing they’ve ever heard.

It’s not. It means that they’ll probably have to kill one another in the end. Clint already knows he’ll be the one to die - Natasha’s got family, she’s got Phil. Clint has no one, and while that sucks balls, he isn’t dwelling on it.

But three days later, she’s not in a good state, and Clint has to leave her anyways. The Gamekeeper announced last night that there would be a ‘feast’ at the Cornucopia, promising each tribute what they needed most. He _needs_ some antibiotics or something for her. “You’re too sick,” Clint tells Natasha grimly. “I have to go. They’ll have something for you,” Clint informs her, and he’s sure of it.

So he props her up against a rock, ignoring the way her skin feels (too sweaty, too _hot_ ), and forces her to meet his gaze. She’s too feverish, but she makes a valiant attempt. “Take this. _Hold onto it_.” Clint instructs, stuffing a knife in her fist. She grips it tightly, swallowing thickly before nodding at him. He’s probably getting too attached, but it actually _hurts_ to see her like this, so he reaches out without thinking about their little act, he reaches out all on his own, and cradles her head before kissing her forehead.

When he leans back, she’s watching him with soft eyes, and he smiles tiredly at her. “Be here when I get back. If anyone else comes in, kill them.”

“Naturally.” Natasha promises breathlessly. He nods, turning to leave, and he’s halfway out the cave when she adds lightly, “If you take too long I might aim to kill even if it  _is_ you.” She jokes tiredly.

He laughs and shoots her a warm smile - seriously, he’s starting to _adore_ this girl - before he darts out.

He gets his bag and starts to run when Clover, the bitch from District whatever, tackles him and tries to menace him with a knife. He’s in the middle of laughing in her face and is about to stab her in the kidney with an arrow when she starts mocking Rue’s death and the huge hulking guy from Eleven picks her up out of nowhere. Clover screams and tries to take back her mocking claims of having killed Rue, and when Eleven looks at him for confirmation, Clint just shakes his head and makes an incredulous face. 

Eleven breaks her skull on a really big rock.

“Damn, dude,” Clint blinks at the bloody mess that _was_ Clover’s face. Both impressive and surprisingly quick.

“You only get this one, Twelve. For Rue.” The boy (if you could call that buff a guy a boy without it being creepy) snarls threateningly before he storms away.

Clint hightails it the hell out, too.

He finds Natasha half-unconscious in the cave, but not so out of it that she doesn’t chuck his knife at her face the second he enters. “I thought you loved me!” Clint wails and Natasha smirks.

“Might like you more without that mouth.” She teases somewhat hoarsely, and Clint sinks down next to her. There’s a camera in this cave, he knows it - he hasn’t _found_ the damn thing yet, but he can hear it. So he settles down next to her and opens the bag, pulling out a small box of cream.

“I hope you know I killed for you today.” Clint informs Natasha solemnly as he unscrews the top. As expected, she arches an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “Alright, I didn’t kill for you - I was almost killed, though. Clover tried to menace me with a knife and got all braggy about having killed Rue, so the big guy from Eleven broke her face with a rock.”

For a moment, Natasha just stares at him as he fights to get the stupid protective layer off the top of the cream. “...Clove. Her name was Clove.” Natasha says slowly.

Clint blinks.

“Oh. Wow, I’ve been calling her Clover in my head for a while now.” He says, feeling a little silly but mostly bemused. “Well, whatever.” Clint dismisses before finally tossing the dumb sticker sealer  _thing_  away and offering the box up for Natasha’s eyes. “May I apply your ointment, milady?” He asks as formally as he can.

Natasha’s lips twitch softly. “You just want an excuse to fondle my thighs.”

“Don’t _tempt_ me, you vixen you.” Clint teases before he very, very gently rubs the cream into her burns.

 

* * *

 

He has no idea how the guy from Eleven dies. All he knows is that Cato’s death was _ridiculously_ terrible. The Gamekeepers send out a pack of messed up dog muttations after them, trapping all three of them atop the Cornucopia. It takes a serious damn struggle, because Cato’s Career training was no joke, but eventually Clint pins down his legs and Natasha roundhouse kicks him right the fuck off the Cornucopia. “You are _so_ hot,” Clint manages to say before Cato’s agonized screaming and the mutt’s disgusting sounds ruin the mood _fantastically_.

Clint shoots him in the head out of mercy, and genuinely regrets not doing so faster.

The mutts retreat, and as Clint suspected, the second they’re the only two left, the Head Gamemaker changes his damn mind.

“Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.”

For a moment, they both just look up at the sky like, ‘ _seriously_?’

Clint leans back with a groan. “Great.”

“Are you going to shoot me, Clint?” Natasha asks, arching an eyebrow at him, and he shoots her a dirty look.

“Don’t be absurd.” Clint says and then, groping for their one chance at getting the revision re-revised, he steps forward and puts on his most grief-stricken, loving expression. Natasha returns it in a moment, her eyes watering and her lip trembling, and Clint leans in to kiss her gently. She clings to him like her life depends on it, and if they hadn’t practiced this before, he could really see himself falling for it.

They only part when they have to, and both of them hastily look away to swipe under their eyes. “I don’t want to do this.” Natasha whispers tremulously and Clint nods, stepping back and reaching into his pocket.

He’d expected this, and love or not, he cares about Natasha and doesn't want her to have to kill him herself. So he fishes out the nightlock berries he’d scrounged several days ago, presenting them to her. “Then don’t. I’ll eat this, and you’ll go home. You have family, Natasha.” Clint reminds her as gently as he can. “Think of Yelena and your mother. I don’t have anyone but you. You’ll be okay without me.”

“I won’t be.” Natasha argues thickly, reaching up to wipe away even more tears, but they’re instantly replaced, leaving thick tracks through the dirt on her face. “I won’t be okay, Clint, I love you too much.”

“And I love you, too. I’d be lost without you.” Clint lies sadly, reaching up with his free hand to cup her face. He rubs her cheekbone with his thumb and she leans into his touch, blinking big, wet eyes up at him. “Don’t ask me to live without you.”

“Then don’t ask me to, either.” Natasha whispers, and he’s starting to wonder what the hell she’s playing at, why she isn’t just taking the excuse already because he _knows_ she doesn’t _actually_ love him, when she suddenly reaches out and takes half of the berries for herself. “We’ll both go, then.” Natasha says with loving sadness.

And by god, Clint fucking _adores_ this woman.

It’s so, _so_ hard to keep his glee from his expression. Either they call it off now, not wanting to risk not having a victor, or they both get to give a _huge_ fuck you to the Capitol before they die.

Win-win!

Natasha’s a genius!

He kisses her extra hard for that, making it as loving and desperate as he can, and then they both lean their heads back and lift their hands.

He presses the berries to his mouth, and though part of him regrets the circumstances he’s mostly just hugely smug to give one final fuck you. He’s got the berries in his mouth and he’s about to bite down, about to turn around and actually hug Natasha, the best woman in his entire life, for her wicked planning,

When the Gamemaker cries out, “Stop! Stop.” He says, almost desperately.

 _Haha, motherfucker!_ Clint thinks and spits the berries back out. He turns to see Natasha doing the same, quickly nodding at his concerned look. Good. Neither of them actually bit down yet, then. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. I give you - the tributes of District Twelve!”

 

* * *

 

Things are a little weird after that. He and Nat have to go on stage three days after the Games (to give themselves time to heal and get prettied up again) and get interviewed together by Caesar. That isn’t particularly bad, of course. They do the same lovey-dovey routine and then Schmidt crowns them, looking warm and professional but still managing to put the fear of god in both of them without a single threat.

And then they get on the train and leave.

 _That’s_ where things get weird.

“Schmidt doesn’t appreciate your actions in the arena.” Phil tells them grimly as they eat lunch.

It was kind of sad, really. Much as he hated the Capitol (re: with the burning passion of a thousand suns), he couldn’t deny that they had some _stupid_ delicious food. He was eating a bizarre, cheesy soup with pasta and green things that tasted amazing together somehow.

“No way. But he seems like such a nice guy.” Clint says around a spoon as he dumps more of the delicious goodies into his mouth. Natasha rolls her eyes at him, looking equal parts grossed out and amused.

“Quite.” Phil says dryly. “Luckily, you kept up the sweetheart act without me having to say anything. By the way, that is still an act?” Phil asks curiously and Clint exchanges a quick glance with Natasha before nodding. Thank Jesus that she nods too, or that’d be awkward.

“I think I might actually adore her, but no.”

“He’s gay.” Natasha informs Phil and Clint shoots her a quick look.

“I _know_ I never told you that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Natasha shrugs, looking smug while Phil darts a glance between them both. Clint can’t help a tiny itch of concern.

It wasn’t _wrong_ in Twelve to be gay. In fact, most people thought they were luckier that way - no kids to be forced to cough up to the Capitol. But the Peacekeepers weren’t so pleased about it. It wasn’t _illegal_ , to a certain point, but it was disapproved by the Capitol (probably for the same reason the Districts didn’t mind) and they often got targeted by Peacekeepers.

“Don’t worry - Phil is, too.”

“I’m both.” Phil corrects her mildly, looking bored as he sips his hot chocolate.

Clint huffs softly, deciding to pretend he was just never concerned to begin with. “Yeeeah. Anyways, so what does that mean? Why was it good for us to keep up the act?”

“To make it look like an act of melodramatic teenage love rather than rebellion.” Phil explains and Clint blinks a few times.

“Oh. But doesn’t that kind of go against the whole, ‘hey let’s start a rebellion’ thing?”

“No, because the Districts don’t care - they’re desperate for a symbol, and you gave them one. Also, we won’t be able to speak about this once we’re inside Twelve. You’ll both be very closely monitored by the Capitol for this. No more hunting.” Phil adds to Clint, who gapes at him in horror.

“Seriously?” He croaks, and for once Natasha doesn’t seem amused by his attitude. She shoots him a sympathetic look and he grimaces.

“Only if you want to be executed. They’ll be watching.”

“Fuck.” Clint groans, glaring down at his bowl of delicious soup.

Stupid soup.

He _liked_ rabbit.

“Damn it.”

“On the bright side, you’ll get plenty of meat this year - and so will the rest of the District.” Phil says, and that _is_ a bit of a bright side.

As bitter as it always is to watch the victor’s District feast every year while the other Districts starve, he can’t help but feel relieved. For once, it’ll be _their_ District that can spend a year not starving.

“Well that’ll be nice, at least.” Clint muses, and on the note of him being a victor… “Hey, does that mean Barney’s going to have to move into the village with me?”

He gets two equally blank stares.

“Who?” Phil finally asks and Clint frowns at him,

“Uh. My brother. My guardian, I guess.”

“Ah. I was wondering who they were interviewing when you made it into the final eight.” Phil realizes slowly, frowning a bit.

He hadn’t even thought about that. When there’s only eight tributes left, the Capitol interviews the families of those eight - but still, he’s surprised anyone even _knew_ to interview Barney.

“Yeah he’s not exactly warm and friendly. I just sleep under the same roof as him. Doesn’t even feed me.” Clint mutters the last part and Nat gives him another, slightly sympathetic look.

“Unfortunately, yes. As your guardian, he’ll be moved into the same house as you.”

“Damn.” Clint huffs, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “I guess I owe him a roof over his head.”

Even if that’s _all_ he owes him.

“Well. Regardless, as difficult as it will be, I want you both to keep up the sweetheart act.”

“Oh no.” Natasha says in complete and utter deadpan. “However will we survive, living such a lie.”

Clint turns to her, making his eyes extra soft and taking her hands. Immediately she mirrors him, tilting her head slightly and giving just a hint of a pout, sorrow overflowing her eyes. “It will all be okay, my sweet.” Clint croons as lovingly as he possibly can.

“Nothing will ever be okay again.” Natasha protests, voice trembling, and he reaches out to cup her cheek.

“As long as we have each other,-”

“Enough.” Phil interrupts, sounding a little strangled, and they both look sideways to see him struggling not to laugh - or puke, from the looks of it. “You’re both horrible people.”

“Don’t worry. We have the Capitol to make us look good.” Clint comforts.

Compared to them, they were practically _angels_.

“What a lovely slogan. ‘At least we’re not as bad as the Capitol!’” Natasha muses and Phil actually _laughs_ , just a little bit, around the rim of his cup.

 

* * *

 

All in all, six months pass without incident. They keep up the sweetheart act in the District, to the point that Clint basically moves into Natasha’s house. Her mother doesn’t completely approve, of course, but she doesn’t stop him either - and Yelena’s completely adorable. It’s weird, convincing even her own family that they were together when they’re really just close friends, but it’s not too bad.

They get all the way through till the middle of December before they begin their Victory Tour, and it goes smoothly. There’s tons of oppression, but almost as many signs of rebellion (especially in District Eight, where a few people heartbreakingly whistle Rue’s mockingjay signal from the Games). But at the end of it, even Phil, who _knows_ they’re acting, has no complaints towards their performance. It all comes to a head when they’re in the Capitol on the last day of their Tour.

It coincides with a holiday Clint had never even heard of but was apparently _widely_ celebrated in the Capitol known as ‘Christmas’.

Supposedly it’s the birthday of ‘Jesus Christ’, who Clint had never known was actually a person and not just an admittedly weird sounding exclamation.

It’s there that they meet another victor for the first time in their ‘careers’. Outside of Phil, that is. “This is Steve Rogers.” Phil introduces, gesturing to the towering wall of stupidly attractive muscle in front of them.

Clint’s brain turns to mush. He’s _that hot_.

“Natasha Romanoff.” Nat steps up with an amused hint to her voice, extending a hand to Steve. Who takes it and _kisses_ the back of it.

Natasha blushes a little. “Holy _shit_.” Clint breathes out, stunned, and Steve looks at him in slightly confused surprise. “I’ve never seen her blush. _Ever_. And there have been _attempts_.” Clint explains, awed, and Natasha steps on his foot. “ _Ow._  Also, Clint Barton.”

“A pleasure.” He says, and god damn his voice is almost as hot as he is.

“This is just unfair.” Clint whimpers softly to Natasha, who turns and half-hugs him, burying her face in his neck to make it look like they’re embracing when in reality she’s just laughing hysterically into his suited shoulder. “You’re the worst.”

Steve looks _really_ confused now, but Phil just keeps smiling blandly and distracts him with conversation. “You look good, Steve. Date night?”

“Actually, no.” Steve says, looking relieved, and Phil’s shoulders relax slightly.

That was weird, and Natasha notices too, because she pulls away and gives Clint a gentle kiss on the lips before she tucks into his side again.

“I didn’t know past victors were allowed on another District’s Victory Tour.” Natasha phrases it like she’s just curious, and it convinces literally no one who knows her. Steve’s smile falters slightly before he offers a faint, sheepish shrug.

“Toni and I are special cases. We have a lot of friends in the Capitol, and, well. They pull strings sometimes.” Steve explains, glancing down uncomfortably at his glass before he looks up again.

“So Toni Stark is here, too? I’d like to meet her.” Natasha muses and Steve shoots Phil a weird, indecipherable look.

“Ah. Not the best idea at this event, I imagine.” Phil hums softly. “Next Games I’ll take both of you with me so I can teach you a bit about mentoring. Toni’s the female mentor for District Three - you’ll be able to meet her then.”

“Jamie and I are mentors for Four, as well.” Steve adds thoughtfully.

“You’ll like her, both of you. Jamie Barnes won the 66th.”

“I remember.” Natasha says with a small, thoughtful frown. “You had me watch her Games. She seems like someone I’d get along with.”

“Which means I’m doomed.” Clint says dryly, forcing away his Steve induced stupidity for about a split second. Then Steve turns his attention to him, and all Clint can think about is what a nice shade of blue his eyes are.

Natasha laughs and discreetly elbows him out of it. He hugs her a little closer for that.

“Ah.” Phil says suddenly, looking past Clint’s head. Clint looks over his shoulder, blinking, to see a few people starting to filter out of the party. “Your window of opportunity is closing, Clint.” Phil says mildly, but when Clint looks back at him, he actually _smiles_.

 _Warmly_.

It makes _him_ blush a teeny, tiny bit, which he hides by ducking his head and meeting Natasha’s eyebrow-raised stare. “What window?”

“You’ll see.” Clint says, and farce or not, excitement has his stomach bubbling gleefully. He pulls away from her, seizing her hand instead, and Phil whistles sharply to silence those around them. Clint still drags Natasha forward to the closest chair, stepping up onto it and waiting for Phil to whistle again. “Excuse me!” Clint calls, Natasha’s hand tightening in his own. “If I could have a moment of your time, please!”

One of the cameramen steps forward, the camera aimed right at him, and immediately the image of him standing attentively on the chair and Natasha watching him with some confusion is broadcast to the many television screens around the large compound the party is held in. More and more people fall silent, turning to either him or the closest television, and Clint grins brightly at the cameraman. “Thank you, you just made this much easier. Sorry about standing on a chair like a heathen child, but in my defense, I _am_ from a lowly District,” Clint winks teasingly and laughter burbles through the crowd.

Natasha’s smile softens up at him in adoration. “I just needed to get your attention. I have an announcement to make, and I’d like to start off by extended my sincere thanks to President Schmidt, whose beautiful home this celebration is being held in,” Clint gestures with his free hand towards the mansion behind him. “But most of all, I want to thank each and every one of your for your unending support towards Natasha and I.” Clint says, lowering his tone to something more gentle and truly grateful.

“Your support got us through the Games intact, and to show our appreciation, I’m doing this here and now, in this beautiful garden, with all of you here.” Clint explains, then steps down and turns to face Natasha, holding her hand between them.

She still looks really confused, but a hint of suspicion is growing. He grins wickedly at her and lowers himself to one knee. Immediately people everywhere start gasping and Natasha’s eyes widen, genuinely shocked for a moment before she forces herself to go soft and loving again, with a hint of real amusement to her lips.  
  
“Natasha Romanoff. Will you marry me?”

 

* * *

 

They both hate pandering to the Capitol. It’s funny, sometimes it’s downright hysterical, but neither of them enjoy pretending to be _one of them_.

Still, the marriage thing was a stroke of genius, to the point that Natasha was kind of annoyed with him for coming up with it (she claimed she just wished he’d talked to her first, but he knew what she was really mad about). It was meant to alleviate any further worries President Schmidt might’ve had towards their methods of winning the Games, and it was meant to keep them safe from any backlash.

None of this matters when February comes around. They’re doing a stupid poll for Natasha’s wedding dress, in what Phil thinks is a bizarre and crafty smear campaign to make her look like one of _them_ (eugh), when Caesar Flickerman suddenly calls up the ‘other big event’ of the evening. “That’s right,” Caesar says just as Barney comes through the front door, stinking of sweat and coal, “this year with be the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games, and that means it’s time for our third Quarter Quell!”

“They’re announcing already?” Barney asks, which makes Clint startle a bit, because the guy hasn’t said anything outside of ‘hey you didn’t die, nice house’ since the end of the Games.

“Uh. Apparently? Seems really early, though.” Clint muses, and is further caught off guard when Barney actually sits down next to him to watch the screen.

“Still months away.” He mutters by way of agreement, just before the screen flickers and President Schmidt takes the stage.

He’s followed by a young boy dressed in a white suit, much like him, holding a simply wooden box. The stupid anthem runs for a moment, and when it finally dies, Schmidt starts preaching about the ‘Dark Days’ and blah, blah, blah, District people are bad, blah, blah, rebellion’s evil, blaaah.

“On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold a vote on the tributes who represent it.” Schmidt says slowly and Clint cringes a little.

That even worse than the lottery. Making them choose their own children for it… fucking sick.

“On the fiftieth anniversary, as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes.” Which was, in fact, the Games Phil had won. For a moment, Clint feels a little sick at the reminder - having to face forty-seven kids instead of twenty-three? Yikes.

“And now we honor our third Quarter Quell,” Schmidt says, gesturing the little boy forward. The kids offers up the box, which Schmidt opens smoothly, and the camera zooms in to show several tidy rows of yellowed envelopes. Whoever had devised the Quarter Quell system had planned _centuries_ of extra-special, extra-horrible Quarter Quells. Schmidt fishes out the one marked with a 75, popping the flap up and extracting out a small paper.

He blinks, once, and then looks up at the camera to read without hesitation, “On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.”

For a moment, both of them sit there in stunned silence.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Barney whispers, breaking the silence, but it returns for several more moments. Then he simply stands up and leaves Clint alone in the living room, stunned silent and feeling sick to his stomach.

Natasha was the only female victor in District Twelve - _ever_ , in fact. All three other victors had been male.

Which meant she was going back in, no way around it.

Clint stands up abruptly, eyes narrowing and hands fisted at his sides.

He sure as shit wasn’t going to let her go alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is basically all just Nat and Clint broing it up, to be completely honest. It's pretty great.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [After Me Comes the Flood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288462) by [phoenixyfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend)




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